OFFICIAL REPORT The American Association of School Administrators A Department of the Notional Education Association of the United Stotcs ATLANTIC CITY CONVENTION March 1-6 1947 / \ 'It- CONVENTION THEME "Education and the "Development of Human and Natural Resources T: ^ ' 1 |i-;i LO you l»hi-./-rir, t i,-, ., r^ l-LORIDA CUJEiRICULUM i-ABORATO^.X, COi-UeOE OF £X>UCATION - U. OF FLA. AND STATE DEPT. OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION r. K. YONGje fiiCHOOL . QA1N£SVXJLL£; FLA. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES EDUCATION LIBRARY OFFICIAL REPORT AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS ATLANTIC CITY CONVENTION 1947 THEME Education and the Development of Human and Natural Resources Vf^fl-A-U, DRAWING ON COVER BY ELIJABETH MILLER AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS A Department of the National £ducaiion Association of the United States OFFICIAL REPORT SEVENTY.THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION Arlaiitic Cii .ity MARCH 1-6 1947 n SIXTEENTff MSTREin . NOKXHWEST, WAStfl^G TON 6, I ). c. ApeiLMJ-i"^ Price /ft 7 ^CATION ._ ^ CONTENTS GENERAL SESSIONS Page SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 2, 1947 In Memorlain 9 Presentation of Honorary Life Memberships — Shankland . 9 On Being Alive to the Present — Scharfe . . 11 SUNDAY EVENING, MARCH 2, 1947 The Challenge of Leadership —JVtninmakrr 19 Concert by the Toronto Men Teachers' Choir 30 MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 3. 1947 The Convention Exhibit — Steivart 31 The Schools Are Ours — Hughes . . 32 Some Firsts in Educational Reconstruction . . .^ . . . — Stoddard . 42 MONDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 3, 1947 Friendship Hour 54 MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 3, 1947 International Understanding: An Undeveloped Human Re- source — Benton . . 55 The Age of Crisis and Its Impact upon Education . . . — Humphrey . 63 TUESDAY MORNING, MARCH 4, 1947 Five Talents — Clark . . 81 Presentation of the Yearbook, Schools for a Neiv JForlJ — Courier . . 91 The Association Plans for the Future — //;'// ... 94 Presentation of the Report of the Planning Committee . . — GosUn . . 97 TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 4, 1947 Presentation of the American Education Award to James Bryant Conant — Steivart . . 105 Acceptance of the American Education Award — Conant . . 105 Athletics in Education — K'leran . . 109 The Hour of Charm 114 WEDNESDAY MORNING, MARCH 5, 1947 Educational Opportunity for Whom? — UNESCO's Answer — Drzeivieski 115 Whose Country Is This, Anyway? — Arnall 119 /A/// Page WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 5, 1947 The Educational Crisis: Time for an Offensive Program . — Meyer . . 131 America's Educational Dilemma — Conant . . 140 Presentation of Automobile to Sherwood Dodge Shankland — Hill . . . 148 THURSDAY MORNING, MARCH 6, 1947 Presentation of Past-President's Key to Henry H. Hill . . — Anderson . 151 Building Unity through Understanding — Alpenfcts . 152 The Sound Basis for Federal Aid to Education — Taft . . . 166 THURSDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 6, 1947 Concert by the New Jersey All-State High School Orchestra and Chorus 175 Our Kind of Music — IVaring . . 175 DISCUSSION GROUP WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 5, 1947 Eye Comfort and Efficiency — Gibson . . 188 OFFICIAL RECORDS Annual Report of the Executive Secretary 195 Report of the Planning Committee 220 Report of the Board of Tellers 223 Resolutions 225 Report of the Audit Committee 230 Certificate of List of Securities 231 Program of the Atlantic City Convention 233 Index 255 OFFICERS, 1946-47 American Association of School Administrators President Henry H. Hill, President, George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tenn. First Vicepresideni Charles H. Lake, Superintendent of Schools, Cleveland, Ohio Second Vicepresideni W. Frank Warren, Superintendent of Schools, Durham, N. C. Executive Secretary Worth McClure, 1201 Sixteenth Street, Northwest, Washing- ton, D. C. Secretary Emeritus Sherwood D. Shankland, 1201 Sixteenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C. Executive Committee John L. Bracken, Superintendent of Schools, Clayton, Mo. Irby B. Carruth, Superintendent of Schools, Waco, Texas Hobart M. Corning, Superintendent of Schools, Washington, D. C. George E. Roudebush, Superintendent of Schools. Columbus, Ohio The President, First and Second Vicepresidents, ex officio OUR POLICY — The American Association of School Administrators endorses no individual or gronp of individuals or any sentiment expressed by any speaker or other participant in its programs, ex- cept by resolution or by motion approved by a vote of its members. FIRST GENERAL SESSION Vesper Service Sajii-fay Ajtenwon, March 2, 1947 IN MEMORIAIM PRESIDENT Hill: It is, I think, altogether fitting that we pause this afternoon at tliis vesper service to render inconspicuous but sincere tribute to those teachers of the United States who, along with many others, gave their lives in the service of their country. I shall ask the audience to stand for a moment of tribute and to resume their seats at the sound of the gavel. (The audience arose and observed a moment of silence.) We have the pleasure of having on this program the chorus of one hun- dred voices from Westminster Choir College under the direction of Dr. Carlton Martin. Dr. Martin. Dr. Martin: We think it is fitting at this time to sing a group of songs to serve as a memorial for those who have died in the service of their coun- try. The first song we shall sing is "Rodger Young." Many of you no doubt know of the heroism of this young Ohio lad. The second number will be "Open Our Eyes" by Macfarlane, and the last number the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." PRESENTATION OF HONORARY LIFE MEMBERSHIPS S. D. SHANKLAND, SECRETARY EMERITUS, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS, WASHINGTON, D. C. President Hill : This is our first national meeting since five tumultuous years ago in San Francisco. The Association is therefore glad to have the opportunity to recognize and honor past-presidents of our Association who have retired from active service, those who have rendered unusual services to our organization. There is no one, we believe, better suited to present the honorary life memberships than our Secretary Emeritus, ^Ir. S. D. Shankland. Mr. Shankland. Mr. Shankland: Ladies and Gentlemen, and Friends: Four major incentives to great endeavor are money, duty, honor, and love of the doing. Salary checks are not to be despised. It is hard for a man to exert leader- ship when he must stand with his back to the wall because of the holes in his pants. Duty and honor may inspire many, but the greatest achievements are likely to be credited to the one who works for love of the doing. The presidency of this great organization by tradition and method of election goes only to those who in the judgment of their peers are deemed worthy of leadership. Today we honor eight past-presidents whose span of service covered more than three decades. By authority of the Executive [9] 10 American Association of School Administrators Committee it is my privilege to present to each of them a certificate of honorary life membership in the American Association of School Adminis- trators. They served their profession beyond the call of duty and honor because of their love of the doing. Stratton D. Brooks President, 1910 — Former Superintendent of Schools Boston, Massachusetts Dr. Brooks, you presided at Indianapolis in 1910. It was my first national convention. For me the real thrill of the meeting came when you stopped to shake mv hand. Then, as always, your first care was for those beginning life. Ernest C. Hartwell President, 1919 — Former Superintendent of Schools Buffalo, Neiv York Courageous defender of sound educational procedure, you set standards of professional responsibility which many a younger man has been proud to emulate through all the years. Ellis U. Graff President, 1920 — Former Superintendent of Schools Indianapolis, Indiana At your convention in Cleveland in 1920, in spite of vigorous opposi- tion, first steps were taken to reorganize the Department of Superintendence on an effective year-round basis. The Department owes much to you and your administration. Payson Smith » President, 1924 — Former State Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts A representative of the finest traditions of New England and a worthy successor of Horace Mann. Few, indeed, are those who have served educa- tion so courageously. I received a telegram just now from Dr. Smith advis- ing of his inability to be present and expressing his regrets. Secretary McClure, will you transmit this citation to him. Frank W. Ballou President, 1926 — Former Superintendent of Schools Washington, D. C. For a quarter of a century a tower of strength in the nation's capital. How often when the outlook was discouraging have your fellow superin- tendents turned to you for wise and tolerant advice. General Sessions 1 1 Joseph M. Gwinn Prrsidrnt, 1928 — Former Suprrintrndcrit of Schools Neiu Orleans, Louisiana, and San Francisco, California Superintendent of schools in two of America's most glamorous cities, New Orleans and San Francisco, you kept your poise and never lost the common touch. Charles B. Glenn President, 1938 — Former Superintendent of Schools Birmingham, Alabama Southern fijentleman, par excellence, you extended the gracious influence of your life beyond the boundaries of your state for the lasting benefit of the entire nation, W. Howard Pillsbury President, 19'i2 — Former Superintendent of Schools Schenectady, Nej percent of its income to this huge business. We could spend 3 percent and not exceed the effort of nearly bankrupt England, and I am sure that all of us who heard Miss Ford's report last night will realize the tre- mendous effort that England is making to do the job there. We would have to spend more than 13 percent if we were to surpass Russia. Because this is big business and because we are the managers of this business, we must recognize that business is only as efficient as its top leader- ship. Leaders must have ability to inspire their associates. They must have vision and foresight for the future. Superintendents must inspire in their teachers the feeling of being a vital part of this great enterprise, must make them feel the precious sharing of responsibility. Success for the administrator is dependent on the teachers, who, sharing the work, should also share the glory. We all know that good teachers go to the school systems where teachers share in the policy-making and even in the budget-making. In this kind of atmosphere everyone gives his best and grows better. I would like all of you, as superintendents, as leaders in your various school systems and in your various schools, to feel this tremendous responsibility that you have as leaders to make the work- ing organization good. Let us not make some of the errors that have been made in industry. Let us make it a united effort — not superintendent and schoolboard, not principal and superintendent, but teachers, superintend- ent, principal, schoolboard, children, parents, and community, all working together to do the job, this tremendous task that we have of building leaders of men. I want to go on a little with the thought of the feeling of working to- gether not being restricted alone to the superintendent and the teachers. The children must accept as a natural part of school life that they, too, are important in the successful operation of this business. From the day the pupils enter kindergarten they must feel within themselves that this is their school, a part of their lives as much as the familiar home surroundings. Only the teachers who feel themselves a "part" of the school can give the children that assurance. Only the superintendent who gives to the teachers confidence that they are working together toward the same goal can expect such teaching from his staff. Children in the elementary school must learn through their teachers to accept the feeling of continuity in school living — the relationship between the elementary, the secondary, and the extended secondary. The fact is that they are all contributions to the mosaic of the school pattern. Thus children achieve a feeling of balance and security that carries them forward into better citizenry for the world. A respect for personality and the creation of freedom are among the Ideals that characterize American people at their best. Certainly education must serve these ideals effectively. The one who must take the lead in establishing a feeling of one pur- 22 American Association of School Administrators pose throughout the entire faculty and school population is the adminis- trator himself. There has been too much division of interest among superintendents, teachers, parents, and children, too much working at cross purposes. Par- ents have accepted the school as a basic part of Johnny's life, but of small concern to them except when Johnny came home with an unsatisfactory report and then they were annoyed. Teachers and superintendents have gone their separate paths and many times blocked each other's path. Chil- dren accepted school as an irksome part of their lives to be disposed of and forgotten as soon as possible. What business concern could prosper or even survive under those conditions? This situation does not exist in all schools. If it did, we would immedi- ately forfeit our right to leadership. It has been a matter of a relatively few years since education climbed down from its ivory tower and joined the Rotary Club. It has been a matter of many years over which education could have "sold" itself to the community. Scholars, traditionally, were supposed to be reserved and severe and to speak a language unfamiliar to the man in the street, whether he be plumber or banker. We now know that no more fallacious reasoning ever existed and we now pay the penalty for it. Considering the credit side of the ledger, we have made promising progress along those lines since we realized the error of our ways. We have convinced a sizable group of our population that teachers, administrators, even college presidents are human and entirely acceptable members of society. It remains for us to convince the other parts of the population of the same facts and all they imply. No more propitious time was ever at hand for the acceptance of a chal- lenge to leadership. The world is sick today. We have only to think of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, of Warsaw and Rotterdam, to realize what will happen if this sickness is not healed. Here in this auditorium we have but one point of view, I am sure, and that is that education can and will be the means to this end. Educators, at the present time, find themselves in a brilliant limelight. The whole world is looking to education for assistance and leadership. Here in the United States the trials of the teaching profession are receiv- ing more serious comment through the editorial columns of newspapers and periodicals than ever before in the history of our country. Great Britain and Russia have appropriated unprecedented sums for their schools. The limelight, however long delayed in our opinions, is cast upon us from all directions of the international theater. Do the American adminis- trators— the superintendents from Maine to Washington, from Long Is- land to California — have stage fright? I don't think so. But regardless of some measure of stage fright, education is in center stage, front, and the curtain has gone up. Mention has been made of the abundance of editorial comment con- General Sessions 23 cerned with the teaching profession. You may be thinking, "Is this any time to take on a challenge for more than our own nation? If our own education business is not in order, can we reasonably be expected to do more than solve our own problems?" To me there is no choice. The challenge accepted here is the challenge accepted for the world. We can have no enduring system of free democratic education in the United States without extending that system to the chil- dren of the world. The rocket plane, the jet plane, the atom bomb answered the isolationists for all time. The problems facing us in our business are grave. One out of seven teachers in the United States is employed on a substandard or emergency certificate right now. We have promise of scant replacements in the com- ing years, and we have an increasing school population due to the rise in birth rate. We have teachers striking — something unknown to the United States before. We have miserably inadequate salaries for the teaching pro- fession. Our school plant is overcrowded and in need of modernization. There is a necessity for expansion of the school program to provide educa- tion for all the children of all the people so that we may democratically develop our human and natural resources. The recurring question of federal aid is another fundamental challenge to educational leaders. The average administrator is discouraged and shares the insecurity of the times when he surveys his list of problems. Some superintendents have avoided the responsibilities of leadership and are now reaping the harvest. Let me give you some illustrations of what has been termed leadership from the rear. One superintendent I have in mind has been occupying the same position for several years. He has dischaged his duties in a conscientious, uninspired manner. He has occupied the office labeled "Superintendent" and has limited his vision to the walls of that office. Recently his teachers called a meeting on their own initiative and requested that he attend. The purpose of the meeting? The teachers had outlined expected salary raises and a complete program for the superintendent to endorse. Leadership? From the front or the rear? Another instance: A letter reached my desk not long ago wherein the writer, himself a superintendent, advocated that "school administrators place themselves squarely behind our teachers in their efforts to secure a better economic position." To the best of my knowledge, leaders in any endeavor do not function behind their forces. Whenever they maneuver themselves into that position, they find themselves the "led" and not the "leaders." The time is past for just average administrators. Every one of us has to do better than average to insure success for our schools and our democracy. On this question of leadership I like to think of the story about a general in this last war who, when he instructed his young men in leadership, would take a string and put it out on the table. Then he would try pushing it, and of course the string just doubled up. Or, if he didn't happen to have a 24 American Association of School Administrators string, and they were eating and were having some spaghetti, he would take a string of spaghetti and push that from the rear. You know what hap- pened to it. That is what I mean. Are we going to lead or be led? These are times when the job is not going to be easy, when we are sometimes going to won- der why we are in it. I say this for myself as well as for all of you in front of me. These are times that are going to try us, and we are going to know whether we can meet the situation as it comes to us. We have got to use every technic, every available good thing that we can find in the way of leadership, to keep on top of the job. Federal aid for education. The subject has been viewed with alarm, it has been hush-hushed, it has been acclaimed, and it has been fiercely fought. It has been squarely faced as an issue. Federal aid for education is nothing new or novel, although the very men- tion of the words has given us nervous indigestion. Federal control is the significant factor and one which should occasion severe attacks of thinking. Federal aid without federal control for education, channeled through existing state and local agencies, can act as a financial transfusion to our school business. Federal aid for education started as far back as 1802 when Ohio received land grants for school purposes, and I don't need to tell you that this was followed by the Morrill Act in 1862 for agricultural colleges, the Smith- Hughes and George-Deen Acts, the Lanham Act, and others. All of this was federal aid, and I dare say the majority of the adminis- trators in this audience have worked with different phases of this federal aid. Consequently, every school superintendent in the nation should under- stand the fundamental issues of federal aid. First, it is possible to have fed- eral aid without federal control. We have had it for one hundred fifty years, and it can go on and be set up as it is proposed in the National Edu- cation Association Bill. Second, we cannot have equal educational oppor- tunity in the United States without it. Certainly one of the tenets that we hold to is that we have equal educational opportunity in the United States. Third, the current crisis in education will not be solved unless the taxing power of the federal government is used for education. The federal gov- ernment is the only one that can tax where the wealth is and distribute the money where the children are. May I just say briefly that Senate Bill 472 has been introduced in the Congress by Senator Taft and seven others, and you are going to hear from him later in this program. It is a basically sound bill. It authorizes up to $250,000,000 a year to assist public schools in the neediest states. It apportions these funds on the basis of need, determined by the number of children and the wealth of the state, and it guarantees that every child in every school district of every state shall have at least a $40 per year educa- tion— little enough. It guarantees local control of the public schools, and it provides for fair distribution of the federal funds in the education of minority races. That is fundamental. As leaders in education, we might just as well General Sessions 25 face the issue and know it thorouf^hly. We have written this bill so that it brings the federal money to public schools only, and the issue of whether it shall go to public or private schools is one that we must face squarely and understand as American educators. It is a basic principle in American education. We must know these issues if we are going to accept the chal- lenge of leadership in these United States so that this job can be carried out. State and local school agencies experienced in the distribution of school moneys are already functioning. Business methods certainly indicate any additional funds, whatever the source, should be channeled through these already operating agencies, rather than incurring expense and duplication of effort by setting up new systems. More state and federal financial support for education is imperative. That is one reason I am going back to the state of Washington as soon as I can, because the state of Washington is just one example of the more than thirty-five states in which legislatures are in session and where the whole educational program is being presented by our professional organizations, to increase the amount of money from the states to the local school districts so that we may be able to work out of the crisis in which we find ourselves. This job must be done by the local, state, and national governments if we are going to be able to carry out the kind of educational program that we believe in. We need to give every attention and every efiFort to obtain these funds from our state legislatures and from our local agencies, and we, as administrators, must be out in front doing this job. We can do it. We can take into our confidence the men and women in our communities. The parent-teacher associations, the state congress of parents and teach- ers, all of the lay agencies that are interested in education will work with vou if vou take them into the sharing of the responsibility. You know, every- body likes to have an opportunity to make a contribution, and you will be amazed at the assistance and the help that you will get. You are getting that, I know. I have heard a lot of stories of the fine cooperative effort that you have been able to get in your local communities and in your states. We are working it out at the national level the same way. It is our job as leaders to see that that is carried out. It is a conclusion that educators of the entire nation have reached that more state and federal financial support for education is imperative, and I am quite certain that it is not only educators that have reached that con- clusion. I am quite certain that the general public has reached the same conclusion, and unless we take the initiative in leading our school and community in a sound, practicable program whereby we can accept federal aid and get additional state aid and still keep these funds coming through our present regular school agencies, we will again stumble before the chal- lenge to leadership. May I say here that we. too, have a job of building our professional organization. I know I don't need to say very much to this group, but I think there are some issues that we need to face as school administrators in the matter of organization. Sometimes we are a little bit afraid to have an organization of teachers in our school system. I don't believe there are many 26 American Association of School Administrators administrators that feel that way, but if there are, I am sure that you are going to work with your teachers and with your principals to develop a sound professional organization. Now I am going to say one very significant thing to you as leaders, to all of us, because I think it is tremendously important that we understand the issues in the forming of teachers' unions and in affiliation with labor organi- zations. I think that problem should be understood clearly by all of us and that we should make our decision in the light of that understanding. I believe that the future of the profession and of the country gives us a clear mandate that we shall not form unions and affiliate with labor organi- zations. [Applause] I say this to you because America has many problems within it — business, industry, agriculture, labor. We respect all of these organizations, and we know that they have done a fine job of advancing their own particular group interest, but teaching is a profession and, of all the professions, holds the highest obligation to impartiality and universal service. Its task is to serve all humanity and to advance the general wel- fare. I don't go along thinking that we should affiliate with any one organi- zation that will tie us to any particular group ; I say that we should keep clear and free because we are the teachers in our free public schools, employed by all the people, paid by all the people, to teach the children of all the people, to foster the search for truth and good living, without bias to any party, creed, or class. I think that we, as leaders, owe it to our profession and to our teachers to talk through this problem with them so that they may understand the issues involved. These problems facing the profession, which I have sketched briefly, are not unsolvable, and in every section of the United States some progress is being made in solving them. The progress may seem discouragingly slow at times, but each problem solved in each school is proof that it is progress. Educators have realized the seriousness of many of these problems for years, but the average citizen is just now learning them — through the lay press. We know that American citizens, roused to action, move with speed. The practical leadership in this action must originate with you. The problem most prominently before the public at the present time is inadequate salaries for teachers and its corollary — lack of adequate teach- ing personnel. This condition exists on all levels, but most seriously at the elementary and secondary levels. That is the most grievous part of the whole problem. The responsibility of the teacher in developing a true concept of demo- cratic education and international cooperation is greater at those levels. The child in elementary school is least biased by prejudice. Consequently, his mind absorbs the teachings of understanding and cooperation. He has fewer preconceived ideas to dislodge. In correcting these problems, we reasonably enough resort to "selling" education. We know from surveys and experience that young people of today avoid a career in education for two reasons — the low salaries and the lack of respect the profession commands. General Sessions 27 However interested in education as a profession and means of service, few young men and women are going to enter that profession when they know their streetcar conductor or garbage collector receives more for his efforts than they as teachers can be guaranteed. Likewise, the man and woman now teaching are likely to desert their chosen profession to accept a position that will double their income. In my own state of Washington, we have felt that we have done a pretty fair job of raising teachers' salaries in the last five years, and it came as somewhat of a shock the other day to realize that actually the teacher today is getting less recompense in buying power than the teacher in 1940. In 1940 we paid an average salary of $1700. Today we pay an average salary of $2500, but whereas the salary in 1940 was paid in dollars, today it is paid in 50-cent dollars. So, today's teacher receives something like $1250. The cost of education increased from $113 in 1940 to $180 in 1946 in my state. Actually, each pupil benefited less in 1946 than the 1940 pupil because those, too, were 50-cent dollars in 1940 buying power. The argument that teachers' salaries must be increased to meet the higher cost of living is faulty reasoning. Superintendents must take the lead in pointing out the error in the theory. The cost of living is not the basic issue. The entire teaching profession must be raised to a higher relative professional plane and increasing salaries merely to meet the rising cost of living is no solution. The teacher, considering preparatory training and service rendered, has been underpaid since the days of Queen Elizabeth and probably before. In these days the level of payment is absurd. Throughout the nation the teachers now in service are bitter about this inequity, and the men and women preparing to choose an occupation shun teaching as a plague. Without workers, industry fails. The biggest business on earth could fail! Teachers must receive the increases in salary commensurate with their training, abilitj', and value to the community. The public must be educated to the recognition of the teacher as a personality, a contributing individual in the community, and not as a functional adjunct to the school building. Administrators must identify themselves with their faculties and their schools as a working, participating unit. We are all familiar with the errors we have made in the past. The pro- fession has been both meek and voiceless. Our unity in times of stress could well be questioned. Those are tendencies we can and must correct within our own profession before we can expect to gain rightful recognition. Better salaries and professional stature in the community will attract our young people to teacher-preparing institutions. The desire to teach is far from dead. How many girls have turned to business rather than teaching careers when their preference indicated the latter cannot be com- puted. How many boys have turned to other professions even though they felt an almost unacknowledged desire to enter teaching is also unknown. When teachers no longer feel set aside in their communities through 28 American Association of School Administrators stingy salaries and unwritten social restrictions, we will have cur schools staffed with teachers who will fulfil to the utmost the demands of their profession. Until that time arrives we will have teachers in our schools who are not equipped to teach either by training or temperament. As long as that condition exists, our schools are in a dangerous position. One feels mixed emotions as he reads the headlines so frequently seen of late: "Education Faces Complete Breakdown," "School System of Nation Imperiled." You have seen them, and, if you feel as I, we may term it a healthy indication of the concern on the part of the general public. The seriousness of the situation is not to be deprecated, but a funda- mental faith in the democratic principles of the American people and their institutions guarantees that the American schools are in no immediate dan- ger of breaking down completely, or that the children of the coming decade face teaching so deficient they will be unfitted to join a world democracy. An analysis might reveal some slight trace of wishful thinking there, but when hard work and a concentrated will are back of wishful thinking, it becomes purposeful rather than wishful. More impressive words are seldom penned than those embodied in the Preamble of the Constitution of UNESCO. I know you have read them, but rniay I repeat: "The Governments of the States Parties to This Con- stitution, on Behalf of Their Peoples Declare that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed . . . ." If those words can be completely lived, the hope for lasting peace can be realized. Those of us who attended the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Paris in November believe the words can become a formula for peace in the world. We believe just as sincerely that unless the defenses of peace are constructed in the minds of all men, catastrophe for all the world will be the inevitable outcome. One of the coincidences that lends encouragement to educators and to all the world by its very connotation of progress was brought to our minds in Paris. In 1919 Fannie Fern Andrews, outstanding educator, appeared before the committee drafting the Covenant of the League of Nations to ask that international cooperation in education be given rightful recognition. Her plea failed. In 1946 our own delegates to UNESCO met daily in the same room in which she made her original plea. How much of the failure of the League of Nations and how much of the resultant World War II may be blamed on this exclusion of education as a factor in world peace will never be known. We do know that men and women of intelligence throughout the world believe education must have an outstanding place both in the planning and functioning of world peace. Before we have done more than lay the groundwork for the pursuit of democratic education on an international basis, we should acknowledge our present progress must serve only as an incentive and spur to greater efforts. We as educators have been recognized as having an outstanding part in the peaceful progress of the world, and we will have to "deliver the goods" in order to maintain our place. General Sessions 29 The history of the world offers us innumerable instances where educa- tion has been warped to suit the aims of despots and dictators. Hitler's Youth Movement was pursued under the guise of education. Hirohito's adolescents were thoroufjhly trained under the Imperial rescripts. The effects of the resulting; wars will be with us for generations. There still exist in the world the conditions that may foster the restricted education that produces war and not peace. It rests with all people — not only the individuals who work directly with the United Nations organization — to save the true ideals of democratic education from corruption by such intellectual tyranny. Attending and participating in the UNESCO meeting in Paris was a privilege and responsibility enjoyed by a few. Assisting in realizing the aims of UNESCO is the privilege and responsibility of the many. Preparatory work in the field of textbook revisions has been named as one of the 1947 aims of UNESCO. My studies both in France and Japan convinced me of the importance of this undertaking. If the textbook con- tains ideology inimical to a peaceful democratic society, the child of any nationality will necessarily absorb that ideology during his most formative years. Our present difficulties in the reeducation of Japanese and German adolescents who received their early schooling under dictators' rule should provide all the illustration we need. One of the other aims in education of UNESCO was the development of the technics of teaching international understanding at the elementary, secondary, and higher levels. That, I think, is the most significant and the most important job that is ahead of us. We who stayed at home during the last world war may learn a lesson in this international understanding from the boys who fought overseas. The majority of those lads had never before visited a foreign country and had never seen the different races or observed the customs and habits of our allies or the men they were sent to kill. j\Iany of those boys returned to these United States exhibiting more tolerance for these people than many of us who stayed at home. For masses of the world population, the language of statesmen provides no common ground for understanding. Consequently, education must teach international understanding and cooperation on all levels. It cannot be wedged in the curriculum between the eleventh and twelfth years of high school. That way lies disaster. I warn you against smug thinking. Beware of being trapped by the thought your school is small, your district unimportant, and your teachers few in number when viewed on a worldwide basis. Your school is vitally important because j'ou are turning out citizens of the world ; your school is important because it is a part of our democratic educational system; your teachers are important because they are contributing members in a society dedicated to democratic rights and privileges. The American school administrator has the greatest opportunity life can afford now open to him. He must inspire and work with his teachers by straightforward cooperative leadership. He must contribute to the progress 30 American Association of School Administrators of his community by his own fair-minded but firm leadership in his own school and by his participation in the community enterprise. In closing, I would like to quote from a play in which it was said about George Washington that "There are some men who lift the age they inhabit 'til all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime." 1 hope that it may be possible for all of us to lift the age that we inhabit so that all men will walk on higher ground for the contribution that we have made. I thank you. CONCERT BY THE TORONTO MEN TEACHERS' CHOIR conducted by ELDON BRETHOUR, DIRECTOR OF MUSIC, TORONTO PUBLIC AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS, TORONTO, CANADA President Hill: At this time I am quite happy to present the Toronto Men Teachers' Choir, who will be led by Mr. Eldon Brethour, director of music, Toronto Public and Secondary Schools, Toronto, Canada. We appreciate the cooperation of our Canadian visitors. I must say it is a good idea that the members of the board of education and the director came with them, because there are persons around on the Atlantic City Board- walk that would almost bribe teachers like these to go home and work for them. However, since they are guests, they need have no serious fears on that account. I now have the pleasure to present Mr. Brethour. (See page 235 for complete program of music.) THIRD GENERAL SESSION Monday Morning, March J, 1947 THE CONVENTION EXHIBIT R. E. STEWART, NEW YORK, NEW YORK; VICEPRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATED EXHIBITORS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION IQRESIDENT HiLL: I Ikivc thc plcasui'c of presenting a representative of ■'^the Associated Exhibitors, without whose cooperation this meeting would not be the success that we hope it will be. This is the first time that we have had a full dress show of exhibitors of school supplies and equip- ment since 1942 in San Francisco. Unfortunately, Mr. E. J. Sheridan, the president of the Associated Exhibitors of the National Education Associa- tion, is ill and cannot be here, but we are happy to have Mr. R. E. Stewart, vicepresident of the Associated Exhibitors, to say a w^ord to us about the convention exhibit. I am glad to present Mr. Stewart. \Ik. Stewart: Mr. Hill, Distinguished Guests, Ladies, and Gentle- men : The members of the Associated Exhibitors feel privileged to partici- pate in your first unabridged convention since 1942, and they bid you wel- come to the display of what they make to help you do, more efficiently and more effectively, a better job of making desirable citizens of the youth of these United States. It is more than unfortunate that there are still some who do not grasp how vital your job is. It is a sad reflection on our society. It is just as tragic that some who grasp it do nothing about it. Then there are others — few, fortunately — who recognize it, yet can do little or nothing about it. The representatives of the products exhibited here have something deeper than a monetary interest in this convention and in your profession in gen- eral. They have children of school and college age. They, as all parents should, want American school children to have every possible educational advantage. That which they are showing was prompted by such a motive. Then back of these representatives are the people who make the products and prepare the services exhibited. Their number is rather large, and although they are scattered over the nation, if assembled they might make a city the size of Cleveland, or Philadelphia, or Detroit. They, too, have a stake or an equity in education for some of them still go to school and many more of them have children who arc being educated. As parents, they want their children to have every educational advantage, and as good citizens they want all children to have every educational advantage. In making the products you see here, they, too, are making a contribution to education, not as much as you professional educators, to be sure, yet enough to make them feel an obligation that the youth of this and of every country have nothing less than thc best. The obligation you feel to use the best in education extends through meth- ods to equipment and services and beyond. You arc constantly experiment- [31] 32 American Association of School Administrators ing with new methods to discover and use the best. So it is with the tools of your profession — the equipment and services. It is these devices, products, and services that are designed to conserve and develop our human and natural resources which the Associated Exhibitors cordially invite you to examine during what we hope will be profitable and enjoyable days for you during this convention. We have another invitation to extend. It is for jou to attend the program given by the Associated Exhibitors here in the auditorium tomorrow night, Tuesday, March 4, at eight-thirty. Those who prefer to spend all their time at this convention in the realm of education will find something in it for them. Those who feel the need of relaxing for an hour or two will find something in it for them. Those for whom music hath charms will find them- selves charmed by musicians who do not offend the eye. I thank you. THE SCHOOLS ARE OURS MRS. L. W. HUGHES, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS President Hill: It has been our feeling that in the atomic age we must cooperate or perish. We thought, therefore, that in this, the first national convention since 1942, we would be privileged to have the presi- dent of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers on our program as an expression of our interest in and appreciation of this great organiza- tion and also, I may add, because the president is in her own name and right a great supporter of our American public schools. This organization represents well over four million members, and Mrs. Hughes tells me that in all probability it will be five million before the end of this year. I am not going to take the time to recite all of the accomplishments of our distinguished speaker. It is sufficient for us, I think, to say that it is a great pleasure and honor to present a native of my adopted state of Ten- nessee, the distinguished president of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, Mrs. L. W. Hughes. Mrs. Hughes: Mr. President, I am just wondering if this is the first concession to the atomic age. If so, I want to express appreciation for it. Like thousands of other men and women in all parts of our far-flung country, I have looked forward to this first postwar convention of the Ameri- can Association of School Administrators with more than the usual eager- ness. To begin with, I have been attending your conventions for more years than I shall admit, and the habit was a hard one to curb. Moreover, it has been a profitable habit, for I have never returned from your meetings that my mind wasn't enlarged and enriched by the experience. Then, too, as president of the Tennessee Congress of Parents and Teachers, and later as a member of the National Board of Managers, and still later as the first vicepresident of the National Congress, I have always felt a strong kinship with j'our group — a kinship born of our common interests and objectives. General Sessions 33 This feelinp; is especially strong as I stand before you this morning in the capacity of president of the National Congress — an organization that today numbers four million members, of whom more than five hundred thousand are teachers. The obligation to do justice to my topic "The Schools Are Ours" does not rest lightly upon me. Not because I harbor any doubt about the truth of these words. On the contrary, I am firmly convinced that the public school is an institution of the people, by the people, and for the people, and that educators can give their best service o/ily when they have the complete understanding of the people they serve. It is just because I hold these convictions that I want to take full advantage of the opportunity you have given me to share them with you. And because I represent an organization made up of a true cross section of the American people, I feel a responsibility to reflect, to the best of my ability, what these people think about their schools and why. The words that we hear most often today in connection with our public schools are educational crisis, teacher shortage, and inequality of educational opportunity. You hear them, and we in our organization hear them. What's more, we pay heed to them. I could easily spend the entire time allotted me simply demonstrating to you that education has long been a central concern of the parent-teacher organization. I could take you back through the past half century — to those dreary years after 1929, for example — and sketch for you what PTA's in rural and urban areas alike did to combat the depression. But all that is past history. I merely mention it so you may know that we are not novices when it comes to fighting for the preservation of our schools. We've had many years in which to work out our strategy and train our recruits — many years in which to learn who are the foes of our public schools, who its friends. Today, in the second year of the atomic age, we are again confronted with a major crisis, one unequaled in the history of American education. This crisis might have been averted, but that is now beside the point. What is important is that we must, through our combined energies, ward off the immediate dangers and build so broad and so firm an educational structure that it will never again be threatened, never again even be vulnerable to attack. Not that we have been idle these past months. Far from it. The PTA working hand in hand with various educational groups, especially the state education associations, has already shown its power to make a frontal attack when offensive warfare is necessary. Take Oregon, for instance. Last April the Oregon Congress of Parents and Teachers voted unanimously to act as one of the sponsors of an initia- tive measure to be known as the Basic School Support Fund Bill. The other sponsors were the Oregon Education Association, the Oregon State Association of Schoolboards, and the president of the Farmers' Union, act- ing as an individual. The bill, designed to raise a sum equal to fifty dollars for every child in the state, was drawn up by a member of the state tax commission. I won't dwell on all the obstacles that confronted the sponsors of the 34 American Association of School Administrators measure. It should be noted, however, that before the bill could even be placed in the voters' ballots, a petition signed by twenty-three thousand citizens had to be filed with the secretary of state. Well, the petition was drawn up, circulated, and publicized in every possible way, with the result that nearly forty thousand signatures — seventeen thousand more than needed — were obtained. An intensified drive took the members of the sponsoring committee into communities throughout the state. In a report by the president of the Oregon Congress, we are told that never before had there been such organized, unified effort among the people of Oregon — doctors, teachers, farmers, housewives, men, and women from every walk of life. But even a united stand was not enough. Money, a commodity always to be reckoned with, was needed to wage the campaign. Again in the presi- dent's report we are told that manipulation by the ever present opposition caused a large portion of pledged financial aid to be withdrawn. Parent- teacher members rolled up their sleeves — or perhaps I should say lifted up their feet, for funds had to be solicited from door to door — and the deficit was not only made up but oversubscribed. Finally, after an educational campaign to make sure that every citizen in Oregon understood the issue at stake (parent-teacher members even mounted placards on stakes and lined the sidewalks along all arterial streets), the bill was passed. "Give Every Oregon Child an Even Chance," the slogan of the sponsors, was now more than a battle cry. It was an idea soon to become a reality. Before we leave the West Coast, let's take a look at the magnificent work California has done. Keenly aware of the need to attract into the teaching profession j^oung people of outstanding ability and sincere purpose, the Cali- fornia Congress has established a state scholarship fund of $115,000 to be used for teacher education. They started out with $15,000 and then raised it to $50,000, and a letter that I received just before I left the office stated that they had raised it to $115,000. Every spring thirty-five scholarships of $300 apiece are awarded to high-school graduates and junior-college or four- year college students who plan to teach in the elementary schools of the state. Even college graduates are eligible if the course of study they are con- templating will enable them to fulfil California's certification requirements for elementary schoolteachers. And each scholarship may be renewed from year to year to permit the completion of a full teacher-training course. After completing the course, the scholarship holder must agree to teach in the public elementary schools of the state for a number of years correspond- ing to the number of annual scholarships received. Otherwise the award will be considered a student loan to be repaid to the California Congress of Parents and Teachers. Nor is the West the only part of the country in which PTA's are taking decisive steps to secure for every child an equal opportunity for self-develop- ment. What about the South, a section I should know quite well? Here we can use Louisiana as a sample. In spite of the fact that in the 1940 U. S. census Louisiana ranked fortj'-eighth in literacy, Louisiana was able last General Sessions 35 year to enact a compulsory school attendance law that many educators regard as a criterion for other states to follow. It is sifjnificant that for nine years preceding the enactment of the law, the Louisiana Parent-Teacher Association carried the entire responsibility for arousing public interest in the problem. It is also highly significant that it was the legislative com- mittee of the Louisiana Parent-Teacher Association which wrote the first draft of the bill for compulsory attendance, after a member of the commit- tee had consulted with the legislative expert of the federal Children's Bureau. We can also point with pride to Alabama. Nearly two years ago the Ala- bama Congress took a poll of all the high schools in the state to find out just how many students planned to be teachers. The results were appalling. Only a handful reported the slightest interest in teaching as a career. There- upon the Alabama Congress entered upon a remarkable statewide pub- licity campaign to give young people and their parents some notion of the real facts about the profession. In addition, scholarships are being awarded to teacher-training colleges, and plans are being made to increase teachers' salaries and to improve the living conditions and social life of teachers. Then there is my own state, Tennessee, about which I always brag. The schools needed money — much more money — for teachers' salaries, for teach- ers' sick-leave pay, and for a nine-months' term in all our elementary schools. Under the Tennessee Constitution the only possible way of raising the revenue was by levying a 2 percent sales tax. Nobody wanted a sales tax. It is a perfect nuisance. But the Tennessee Congress of Parents and Teach- ers and the Tennessee Education Association banded together to pass a bill that would bring the schools about $14,000,000 a year. The legislative campaign brought thousands of PTA members into action — and very effective action it was, too. The issue became, in fact, a battle between business interests and the interests of child welfare. I can honestly say that the tax bill was passed without dissenting vote because the Tennessee legis- lators backed by parents, teachers, and administrators put the needs of schools and school children ahead of pressure from the opposition. Beginning with 1937, every biennium Tennessee has passed increased appropriations amounting to millions of dollars for its schools, and never has there been a dissenting vote in the legislature. I could go on and give dozens of other examples equally exciting in their promise not only to maintain present educational gains but to win new ones. I am sure, however, you will agree that even if this much were the whole story, it would be a highly creditable one. Yet it is by no means all ; it is scarcely more than a beginning. Add to it the successful efforts of the Nebraska Congress and two state educational organizations to pass a con- stitutional amendment supplying financial aid to the schools; the Kentucky Congress' legislative drive to improve many aspects of education within the state; the campaign of the Minnesota Congress to secure a more equitable school tax bill; and the same militant action on the part of many other state congresses — Maine, South Carolina, Georgia. Add all these, and you have something that cannot be estimated in figures or evaluated in words — 36 American Association of School Administrators something that has made the PTA a reliable sentry, ready at a moment's notice to protect America's free, tax-supported public schools. Let no one think, however, that we of the parent-teacher organization consider our efforts on behalf of the schools extraordinary — that is, in the sense that they represent activity outside the realm of our enduring objectives. The very opposite is true. One of our chief objectives, from our earliest beginnings as an organization, has been to familiarize parents and the pub- lic in general with the aims, methods, and practices of the American public- school system. Anj^one at all familiar with our organization knows that we have, for more than a quarter of a century, maintained a national Committee on School Education, with corresponding committees in state congresses and local PTA's. This committee studies school legislation, teachers' salaries, retirement and tenure policies, curriculum building, the allocation of state and federal funds for educational purposes, school facilities, the status of teaching as a profession, and all other matters directly related to public instruction. It then recommends to the National Congress, on the basis of its findings, such projects and programs as seem adequate to meet the needs revealed. The National Congress in turn presents the final conclusions to its state branches, and the actual work is done within the states in the local communities. One of the points of the present administration's four-point program, now in full swing — health education, world understanding, parent educa- tion, and home and family life — is none other than better school education. In this area the four specific objectives toward which twenty-seven thousand local PTA's are directing all their initiative and ingenuity are these : 1. To strengthen community support of local and state legislation so as to obtain adequate funds for public schools and equalize educational opportunities within the state; and unite all forces to pass current legislation providing federal aid to the states on the basis of need. 2. To secure community support for establishing a local teachers' salary schedule, beginning with at least $2400 a year for four-year college graduates with full professional training and increasing each year thereafter to a level of $5000- $6000 for experienced, efficient teachers. 3. To work for the establishment of conditions that will make teaching more attractive to talented young people as a life career and that will retain qualified teachers in the schools; and conduct an active teacher-recruitment campaign in the community, emphasizing the public service aspects of teaching as well as its professional advantages. 4. To encourage and give financial support to the elementary schools and high schools in plans to modernize their programs, their equipment, and their facilities so that all children may have the best educational advantages; and advocate more active lay participation in school planning, thereby creating a more effective home-school partnership. Why this consuming interest in education ? Why all this concentrated, consecrated, and concerted effort on behalf of the schools? I could give you many answers, all relevant, all important. Yet today I shall give you the simplest kind of answer. To begin with, the parent-teacher movement is exactly what it says it is — a movement comprised of both parents and teach- ers. Second, we parent-teacher members are first, last, and all the time con- General Sessions 37 cerned with the schools because our children are in them. Led by such Kreat laymen as Horace IVIann, Henry Harnard, Gideon Hawley, and Caleb Mills, Americans have created the finest democratic school system on the face of the earth. Finally, because we believed and still believe that the spheres of home and school are interlocking, we founded the parent- teacher organization whose only prerequisite for membership is an interest in the child's welfare. Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said that we need to build a society in which no one would be left out. Ours, I am proud to say, is an organization from which no one needs be left out. No college degree is needed; no professional training is required; only an earnest and abiding interest in the future of America, for the children of today will be America tomorrow. True, we maintain that the responsibility for education rests where it properly belongs — in the hands of professional educators like yourselves, persons trained to administer our schools. On the other hand, we have never intended that the public should relinquish its particular obligations to pub- lic education. But somehow, somewhere along the line — it would be waste- ful to stop now for analysis — the people and their schools have drifted apart. Yet if ever there was a time when this country cried aloud for intelligent lay leadership, that time is the present. To whom shall we look for direc- tion if not to you, the guardians of our schools? I believe to the utmost that you understand our needs and that you want to help build that leadership. I believe, too, that the present educational crisis has awakened all of us to the stern necessity of making the home- school partnership a truly functioning one. To do so, we must know clearly and fully what each expects of the other. I have already given you an ac- count of the ways in which we parent-teacher members are fulfilling our part of our partnership. May I, then, now be so bold as to speak of some of the things we feel that we have a right to expect from you? In the first place, we want to be informed about the needs of our schools more immediately and more concretely than we have been in the past. Fur- thermore, we want to hear about these needs directly from you. Is this ask- ing too much? No, not if we are the chief stockholders in the largest and most important business America has — its public schools. No, not if we are in earnest when we talk about home-school cooperation and what a marvel- ous force it is. We should have known that a crisis was pending in our schools before that crisis broke ; the time to meet danger is before it strikes, not afterward. Moreover, we should have been informed at the earliest pos- sible moment by yoii — not when it was almost too late by newspaper edi- torials and magazine articles, important as these channels are for reaching our eyes and our ears. I know it takes time out of your busy lives to attend parent-teacher meet- ings and to participate in them. You do not have to tell me how long some of you have had to wait before you were given a chance to speak, the long reports you've listened to, the endless reading of minutes, and the like. I should be the last to deny that many of our PTA programs could stand considerable improvement, just as many of your educational programs can. 38 American Association of School Administrators At the same time I would not for a moment become irked and try to hurry the democratic process because it cannot be hurried. Force — force by a few persons trained to push things through — sometimes looks good, especially when we are impatient with the slow process of giving as many as possible a chance to be heard, a chance to participate, a chance to reach an intelligent decision. Yet it is this very process upon which depends the survival of what we call the democratic way of doing things. The point I want to underline is this: It is the function of the school administrator, aided by the teacher, to keep parents in close touch with all that is happening in the schools. People tend to be distrustful of the things they don't know or don't understand but very seldom of the things they have been informed about. And since most parent-teacher members have joined the PTA because their children's education means something mighty important to them, you will, nine times out of ten, find them sympathetic to your views and your needs. In fact, you will find them eager to do all within their power to make their schools adequate in every essential. Nor is their power to be minimized, as was evidenced in the examples I gave you earlier. Whether it be local effort, state effort, or national effort that is required, theirs is the security of knowing they are part of America's largest and most articulate group of lay citizens. And so, for the future, make it a point to work more closely with your PTA's — to take them into your confidence when the first cloud crosses the horizon, not after the sky has become completely blacked out. What I have just said is in no way to be misconstrued as a general indict- ment. I know a great many school administrators personally, hundreds more by the fine work they are doing. To all these I make grateful acknowledg- ment. My plea is for an extension of such work on a countrywide scale, for more conferences and councils where parents and teachers and school administrators and even, in some cases, students sit down together to pool their ideas and thrash out their problems. I was delighted to read the pamphlet Laymen Help Plan the Curriculum, that new publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development in which Helen C. Storen tells how parents and other citizens really do enter into the important business of shaping a school curriculum. Such specific suggestions as those advanced by Dr. Storen should pave the way — a broad, smooth, and beckoning way — toward a closer cooperation between laymen and professional educators. Next, we have a right to expect that those who administer our schools shall, by their own high example, inspire all who work with them to act in accordance with democratic principles. I wish with all my heart that there were no need for me to speak of this. Yet speak I must if I am to keep faith with the many teachers who have confided their hopes and fears to me. For a good many years now, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers has encouraged a meeting of minds between parents and teachers by holding workshops, institutes, and conferences not only during the summer months but for short periods during the academic year. Last summer, at North- western University, a three-week course on parent-teacher leadership was General Sessions 39 attended by as interesting and challenging a group as ever I have been privileged to work with. In this group were quite a few teachers. They were all educators. From them as well as from many others I heard such words as these: "Yes, Mrs. Hughes, we want to establish a closer link between home and school. And we do indeed appreciate the fitness of the PTA as a cooperating medium. But what would you do, Mrs. Hughes, if you had a principal who wanted none of the PTA in his school?" Or, "What would you do if your superintendent, because he once had an unfortunate experi- ence with one PTA, was adamant about what he termed interference on the part of meddling parents?" What would I do? I think there are quite a few things I might try. H they failed, well, I suppose I'd do all I could to get myself transferred to a more progressive school administered by more enlightened principals and school administrators. But what I would do if I were a teacher is at best a theoretical matter. My task at the moment is to call this state of affairs to your attention and to ask you to right those wrongs wherever they exist. I do not ask this for your sake, although no superintendent can persist in such a stand for very long — that is, unless he wishes to destroy himself and his work with him. Nor do I ask it primarily for the sake of the teacher. My main interest is in the children, for it stands to reason that boys and girls born to freedom can most effectively be educated by those who themselves know the taste of freedom. And they cannot know it if the schools do not reflect, both in structure and in spirit, the essential elements of true democracy. H our children are to learn what democracy is all about, they must sense it and see it in the schoolrooms in which they spend so large a part of their young lives. In this connection may I share with you a few observations about the most human side of your profession. Doctors and lawyers realize that much of their success depends on their personalities. We may laugh all we will at the doctor's bedside manner; yet, to tell the truth, we know that it has helped effect many a cure. He builds his reputation on it. As for the judicial manner of the counselor-at-law, I need not dwell on the influence of the well-modulated voice, the dignified demeanor, and the air of wanting to be genuinely helpful. And this is as it should be, these people are all working with the human being, and the more human he is the more he appreciates the gracious, the good, and the beautiful in others. But what about our teachers, those persons whose manners of speech, whose very walk and toss of the head may be imitated by millions of impres- sionable youngsters? What chance has the teacher to develop his per- sonality until it shines like a gleaming shield? Very little, if he belongs to a system in which conformity is absolute and ultimate. Very little, if he must bow submissively to a school principal who stopped growing twenty years ago and refuses to tolerate new ideas because new ideas demand fresh energies, fresh hopes. AVherever such stagnation exists, there the torch of learning is easily extinguished. I believe, therefore, that we have every right to expect schoolteachers to be superbly themselves, to explore their own talents, and thus to fashion their lives into beauty and meaning. They 40 American Association of School Administrators should be given time to do it. In short, the superintendent who wants teach- ers truly inspired to teach will give them ample opportunity for both pro- fessional and personal growth. What is involved in the first, you know bet- ter than I. For an illuminating discussion of the second, may I direct you to the National Parent-Teacher, our official PTA magazine. There Bonaro W, Overstreet tells us, far more eloquently than I can, how we may all of us stay alive as long as we live. Finally, we want a voice in determining the kind of education our chil- dren shall be given. I am not proposing that we help write another Harvard report on general education or that we set up a list of one hundred great modern books to challenge Chancellor Hutchins' doctrines. But the day has come for all of us to agree on certain basic tenets. Here again is where I believe we, the people, have much of importance to contribute. By what- ever technics you achieve it, we want our children trained to think aright about their place in the modern world. We want instilled into their hearts and minds a positive attitude toward life — an attitude that will make them unafraid of the challenging future. Gladly do we leave it to you to determine the best method by which to teach them how to read and write and calculate. What we cannot leave to you is the substance of their thoughts. We could not if we would, for build- ing the ideal citizen is not the task of parents or of educators alone. It is true that, fortunately or unfortunately, children take their emotional cues from us, their parents, and the foundations of character are laid in the home long before the child enters school. Nevertheless, it is still incumbent upon the schools of America, those citadels of democracy, to do all that education makes possible to build into our children willingness to share in the work of the world — build into them, too, the highest regard for their birthright and the deepest desire to preserve the American dream intact. To be as specific as I know how, we want our children taught self-dis- cipline and self-management. More, we want them emancipated from the domination of those ideas that diminish the love of humanity rather than enlarge it. It takes a quickened imagination and a warmth of feeling to experience a kinship with others. Very well, then, we want the schools to provide situations that will stimulate both. I am not depreciating knowledge. Happy is the individual who possesses it. But knowledge in and for itself is not enough. That was proved to us beyond the shadow of a doubt by the highly skilled and highly trained youth of the dictator-ridden countries. That Germany or Japan didn't dis- cover the coveted secret that lay hidden in nuclear fission before we did was not due to a lack of knowledge, although I admit that we had the good sense to marshal the keenest minds in the world for the dubious honor of splitting the atom. What we need is a generation who knows how to use knowledge for the benefit of mankind, not for its destruction. There is no need for me to linger over the values that must be trans- mitted to our children. All of us know what they are; we have only had two thousand years in which to learn them. But this time we must teach General Sessions 41 them in a way that will make them stick. I say this not because I am frightened of tlie divisible atom that scientists tell us can annihilate the whole human race. Such a fear is a fallacy. It belies our faith in the worth of the human being. I am just as afraid of an evil force that can destroy a hundred lives as I am of a force that can destroy hundreds of thousands of lives. One of the things wrong with our civilization is that it tends to think in terms of statistics. Men are no longer men ; they are pin-points on a chart that focuses our attention on classifications, on categories; so many wounded, so many dead, so many alive. And the individual spirit, the cre- ative being, the very essence of life, is blurred out in the process. No, I say again that if education is for anything it is to enhance the worth of each and every human being. It is to give him insight into how to build the good life for himself and to help build it for all others in body and in soul. ^Vhat if there are those who would thwart us? There are, still, more than enough good people, thinking people in the world to make sure that the kind of education we want shall prevail. If such an education is more expensive, let me assure you that the National Congress of Parents and Teachers is fighting with all its resources to procure federal aid for our tax-supported public schools, and that we intend to get it. Just because we have never had an all-embracing federal aid bill is no reason why we must be afraid of it. In its turn, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers pledges itself anew to build the kind of public opinion that will give the teachers of our land the status and the salaries they so richly deserve. We pledge ourselves to continue creating a public opinion that will not tolerate a halfhearted support of our school system ; that will not permit the voice of the politicians to drown out other voices; a public opinion that will, in short, brook no interference with the raising of school standards. At our last board meeting in New Orleans a resolution was passed to establish a minimum salary of $2400 for all beginning teachers. You remem- ber, this was one objective in our present nationwide school education pro- gram. Even before that meeting the state of California had put this resolu- tion into efifcct. and other states, with the help of their respective branches of the National Congress will shortly reach this goal. Concluding may I leave you with this assurance — Education has a priority with us. Wherever the scales are tipping you can count on us, your partners in the educative process, to weigh the balance in favor of the kind of education thoughtful Americans want so desperately. All we ask of you is a more militant leader- ship, clearer blueprints, stronger and bolder direction. The outcome will more than justify your efforts. There are those who tell us we haven't too much time. I, for one, am not disheartened. We didn't have nearly enough time to prepare for the war we have just won. But action for tomorrow begins today, and we are already a few yesterdays behind. And so, I beg of you let's get busy, let's make every moment count. If we act now, and act togetiier, I for one am certain we shall win all that the war was worth fighting for — the chance to build, through a truly educated citizenry, the only kind of world that can make possible a lasting and fruitful peace for all mankind. 42 American Association of School Administrators SOME FIRSTS IN EDUCATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION ALEXANDER J. STODDARD, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA President Hill: I am sure our next speaker needs no extensive intro- duction to you. I suppose if I were to rate his list of contributions, I would put high on the list his leadership of the Educational Policies Commission for so many years. He has recently been a member of the United States Mission to Japan. He was quite active in raising the War and Peace Fund, far more active than perhaps most of you know. He is a man with a lot of ideas. I have been a close associate of his and sometimes have not agreed with every single one of his ideas, but I have always enjoyed disagreeing with him. Also, he has prodigious energy. I have followed him around a few times, and I know about what it takes to keep up with him. Just one day last summer, for example, he pla3^ed two or three sets of tennis in Philadelphia, then flew down to Nashville, about eight hundred miles, and then along about midnight he joined another yeoman and me in con- suming a fifty-pound watermelon, of which he ate half. It is a very great pleasure to present to you Dr. Alexander J. Stoddard, sometimes more familiarly known to some of us as Jerry Stoddard. Dr, Stoddard. Dr. Stoddard: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention: This is the first nationwide meeting of our great Association since the spring of 1942. The San Francisco convention seems ages ago. As we sat in the Top of the Mark and gazed out towards the setting sun, we wondered restlessly what was about to happen in that vast ocean. Five years are a short time in the calendar of the stars, but since we were all last together an old world has died and a new one has been born. As always happens after a war has ended, nature is busily engaged again trying to hide the battle scars. Grim and determined peoples over the earth are struggling valiantly to establish the firm foundations upon which abiding peace may be built. Cynicism and complacency, bigotry and hatred are not dead, but they have not yet destroyed, and may not destroy, our resolute faith that this time we may stop war forever. We want to stop war partly because of the terrible thing it is in itself. More people in the world now than ever before are determined to pay what- ever price is necessary to stop this kind of destruction. Whether the high hopes of this day will end in just another abortion or whether there will come a new birth of freedom for mankind only time can tell. Also, we want to stop war because it is the supreme deterrent in man's attempt to make progress in solving his other problems. We want so much to make a good world, but always we are consuming our time and strength and material resources in waging war. What a wonderful world this might otherwise become ! How have the schools come out of the war? In the first place, there has been one big gain. Probably never before have the American people had as high a faith in the potentialities of education as they have now. This war General Sessions 43 exploited the services and the products of the schools and colleges to a degree and in a manner that was never before so true. The eagerness with wliich millions of GI's are taking advantage of edu- cational opportunities afforded by their Bill of Rights is heartening evidence of a confidence in education, a confidence developed under a thousand varie- ties of far-flung practical experiences. This widespread faith in the schools and colleges is at one and the same time our greatest inspiration and our greatest challenge. AVhcther that faith will continue indefinitely will be determined not so much by the past excellence of our educational program as by the extent to which the program can be developed to meet the needs of this new and in some respects startlingly different day that lies ahead. The schools face this challenge in a weakened condition and under grave handicaps for the battles ahead. At a time when all of our educational resources should be at peak strength, the schools have emerged from the war period with an expanded program, both present and potential, involving financial support so large that it cannot be provided through traditional sources of taxation. The schools meet an enlarged demand for service with depleted and discouraged personnel ; with a curriculum that needs thor- ough overhauling; with a school plant that is grossly inadequate and in bad repair; and with a philosophy of education somewhat confused both as to objectives and procedures. Some of these problems would not be so serious if attitudes and phi- losophies rather generally were not quite so abnormal and self-centered. For five years and more we have accepted the fact that we could not win except through blood and sweat and tears. Is it any wonder that we now want to find some easy way to win? Maybe the natural successor to the high spirit with which we met the Battle of the Bulge is the ignoble spirit with which so many are now waging the Battle of the Gouge! Much, possibly too much relatively, will be said in this convention about the financial plight of the schools, but there are a few facts that cannot be ignored as we consider problems of reconstruction. Before the war, out of a national annual income of approximately eighty-five billion dollars, the sum of about two and one-half billions was spent for schools. That is, we spent for our schools about 3 percent of our national income. Now our income has grown to one hundred sixty billion, representing largely a depreciation of the purchasing power of the dollar of about one-half. If we were to spend annually on our schools now twice as much as before the war, or five billions, it would just about bring us up to where we were then. But we dare not think only in terms of standing still. Certain advances are essential if the schools are to be improved to meet the educational demands involved in preparing boys and girls to live in the present and in the world to be, and I propose to speak to you at this time concerning some of those advances. I know most of the men and many of the women in this room, and I hope that as I speak to you this morning, I am expressing the thinking on these subjects of most of the people here. The question of teachers' salaries has now become a subject of widespread public concern. The solution of the many problems involved has assumed 44 American Association of School Administrators considerations of crisis proportions. It is becoming increasingly evident that salaries must be raised to whatever point is necessary to accomplish : First, sufficient teachers must be brought into the service annually not only to fill badly depleted ranks, but also to provide the additional per- sonnel necessitated by new needs and improved standards. Second, the quality of teaching must not only be maintained but raised. But it is exceedingly important that this problem of teachers' salaries should also be considered from the standpoint of human justice. While agreeing with President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he said in 1937, "A strike by public employees ... is unthinkable and intolerable," it should be said here and now, often and emphatically, that most schoolteacher strikes have arisen and are likely to arise out of situations and conditions that are also "unthinkable and intolerable." It is to remedying such conditions and situations that we all, both within and without the schools, should give our best thought and concerted action. First, a school strike maj'' result from a failure of school employees to think through clearly the responsibility of the public schools and the rights and obligations of those who become employees in these schools. Second, school strikes may result from a lack of effective administrative leadership. Third, school strikes may result from confused mixtures of educational and political controls. Fourth, school strikes may result where schoolboards fail to plan con- structively in meeting school needs. Fifth, school strikes may result from too little vision on the part of lay and political leadership in anticipation of the development of critical situations and proper action to prevent such situations from reaching a crisis stage. Or school strikes may result from a combination of two or more of these five conditions. But, ladies and gentlemen, whatever the cause, the school strike is not the answer. Such strikes may possibly gain certain immediate advantages more rapidly, but the long-term result is apt to be one of "disservice to the cause of underpaid teachers everywhere and a blow to the whole ideal of public education." ^ However, those within our profession and citizens generally who con- demn teachers' strikes have a duty and responsibility to provide effective means for giving special consideration to teachers' claims for equitable treatment. Possibly government boards of mediation with power to enforce decisions, or some other machinery for providing not only a hearing but action to remedy inequity in pay of public employees, may be necessary. To deny such a public group as teachers certain means of redress of grievances, and then fail to provide other means for their cases to be heard fairly and adequately considered will result, first, in a large-scale exodus from that form of employment both in number and quality of employees and, second, in a breakdown in the services themselves. 1 Editorial, "Hifiher Pay for Teachers: Yes— But No Strikes!" I'liiladelphia Inquirer, February 26, 1947. General Sessions 45 The first of these results is well under way. America dares not allow the second to happen. If our public-school system breaks down and disintegrates, we may find far more than a casual relationship to exist between our schools and our very form of ^^overnment itself. This statement is not meant as a threat — a warning, yes. There must and there will be, 1 hope, far more statesmanlike consideration of this whole problem of teachers* salaries by local, state, and federal governmental agencies than has as yet been gen- erally the case. It is a subject far bigger than can be treated effectively by palliative measures or improvised playing-by-ear. This convention should consider, suggest, and possibly adopt practical methods for awakening the American people, especially their leaders who are in position to take action, to a realization of the fact that nothing less than a major crisis threatens our teachers, who are really our schools. Pos- sibly we school administrators have not been as insistent and persistent as we should have been in dealing with this problem of salaries. We have not done all that we should have done in merely warning society of the crisis. There was a time when the educational program consisted largely of teaching a limited amount and kind of facts, knowledge, and skills to those young people who were able and rather willing to be a party to the process without too much extrinsic inducement. Today we not only conceive of education in terms of all the children of all the people; the school objectives have been expanded to include the habits, attitudes, and appreciations of not only the individual child but also those of his parents, his brothers and sisters, his playmates, his grandparents and theirs, as well as his uncles and aunts. In addition, we expect the teacher to know how much and where each pupil slept the night before, what he eats, what is the condition of his health, both mental and physical — and we expect this to be done effectively with forty diflferent boys and girls whose patterns of behavior and ways of react- ing are never the same from one minute to another. There may have been a time when one teacher could teach such a large group on a non-functional basis the facts, knowledge, and skills necessary to equip them to live rather successfully in a somewhat simple social situa- tion ; but there are few, if any, teachers that can do all that is expected of a modern teacher with forty different pupils who present not only a variety of new frontiers but, in addition, an equal number of vastly changed hinterlands every day! We need more regular classroom teachers, more remedial and adjustment teachers, more counselors, more psychiatric workers, inore doctors, more nurses, and more secretaries. W^e need more workers of many kinds to do effectively a job that has become and is becoming increasingly complicated and extensive in a social situation that is very complex and intense in its implications for the educative process. The additional adjustment in salaries of employees retjuired to recruit the desired quantity and quality of service, plus the expansion in staff neces- sary to raise standards of efficiency, will entail a sizable increase of about two billion dollars in the school budget, based on present dollar values. What of the school curriculum? Some improvements have been made 46 American Association of School Administrators here and there during the war period, but on the whole the school program of service is in need of nationwide study and revision. Our great national professional organizations should furnish the drive to bring about a gen- eral consideration of curriculum changes. Otherwise, the school program may just drift along unchanged because of the many other somewhat more dramatic problems confronting the schools. There is no question that boys and girls and adults will need to know more in the future, know how to use better what they do know, and be able to find readily what they do not know, than was true in the past. Facility in using the means of communication, the ability to speak and to read, have become the essence in our school program. The last few decades have added hundreds of pages to our history books ; an extensive and func- tioning knowledge and understanding of mathematics and science have become musts for the average citizen; the little community of our boyhood daj's has grown into a world in which speed and distance have made geography one of the most important subjects in the curriculum. As we revise the subjectmatter of our schools, the expanding educa- tional needs of life in the tomorrow must be considered. The schools will need to teach more in the same time and teach it better than ever before. In order to do that, the right kind and quantity of textbooks, library and reference books, and other instructional materials and supplies should be available. Aural and visual aids to instruction, especially instructional films on a scale hitherto not yet approached, and other scientific devices must be provided and used without prejudice or fear of impact on vested interests. Any broad and adequate consideration of the school curriculum takes us far beyond the usual concept of subjectmatter. For instance, there is the field of safety education. Our homes, our community facilities, our highways, our gadgets, and machines could and should all be made safer in their physi- cal construction and uses. There is much to be done beyond what we are now doing to prepare our people, young and old, to live efficiently in this world of speed, crowded housing, and power-driven machines. Partly, the job is one of teaching millions of human beings right skills in the use of their material things and a feeling of responsibility not only for their own safety, but also for the safety of others. How to multiply the complexity and speed of our gadgetized lives and keep the machines from destroying us is the dilemma. First, it was the automobile on a grand scale. Now it's the airplane. Both have been misused by mankind, through care- lessness and mistaken adaptation, to bring destruction to an extent that makes us at least question their blessings. The deciding of relative values in the midst of an environment highly complicated with a vast variety and kind of material things constitutes one of our most serious problems. Just as an individual may live an unbalanced life and develop those tensions which result in time in what we call a nervous breakdown, so it may be with society. Many of us hoped fondly that our automobiles, those speedy and com- fortable means of transportation, might enable us to see more of the hills and valleys and streams and green fields instead of just riding past and General Sessions 47 through them with bumper-to-bumper concentration. We thought maybe this machine might reduce such ugly things as intolerance, provincialism, and bigotry, because we could enlarge our concept of neighborliness. So with the airplane. Wc thought that as people came to live almost next door to one another, they would understand one another better and learn to live together in peace. But we have found that the machines are, after all, only machines — the means of either good or bad living, depending on how we use them in relation to the other considerations of life. A society that invents the telephone without stepping up its emphasis on the quality of what the telephone exploits ; a society that develops the record- ing machine, the radio, and television without stepping up its emphasis on a better understanding and appreciation of oratory, the drama, good music, and the allied arts, that develops the automobile and the airplane without teaching its people how to appraise and claim the beauties of the world, including the ability to live successfully together in spite of our differences — that society is riding to a fall just as surely as individual human beings have nervous breakdowns because they, too, have developed unbalanced lives. Broken homes, juvenile delinquency, many kinds of crime, the multiplica- tion of institutions for the mentally and physically unfit, are some of the "chickens coming home to roost" in a society that is approaching a "nervous breakdown." What shall we do about these tensions that are developing? 1. Give more attention in the schools not only to the better uses, but also to the abuses of the material things in our lives so that they may become our servants instead of our masters. 2. Increase the emphasis in the schools still more on such subjects as music, fine and industrial arts, physical education, homemaking, the drama, poetry, architecture, nature study, and good reading. 3. Divert a larger percent of the national income to step up the efficiency of schools, churches, social agencies, and community youth-serving organizations. 4. Open school buildings and playgrounds day and evening, the year around, and establish additional facilities for recreational purposes both for young people and adults. 5. Develop within our school systems counseling and other special services as our contribution to the early detection and prevention of maladjustment, both neurotic and delinquent, and assist pupils in finding themselves and achieving inner security in these times of increasing tensions. 6. Increase psychiatric clinical services in the community along with hospitals and the usual health clinical service. 7. Make it possii^Ie for hundreds of thousands of families in America to move out of the miserable shacks in which they now exist into places that have at least a chance of becoming semblances of homes. One more word should be said about the school services. It has to do with our health program. We now know enough about health, the discovery of defects, and providing of remedial processes, to know that good health for most people is a "purchasable coinmodity." This is true, provided we dis- cover potential difficulties early enough and apply remedial procedures vigor- ously, continuously, and efficiently. We dare not go on dealing with our health probleins in as desultory a manner as we have in the past. Here again the stresses and strains that 48 American Association of School Administrators affect health have been stepped up without providing adequately the balanc- ing countermeasures. Our hearts, our lungs, our kidneys, our eyes, our ears, our nervous systems are not lasting as well as they should. It is not likely that the age of gas, steam, and electricity will decrease the demands upon our bodies. The problem is to strengthen the bodies to withstand the greater impacts upon them. What is involved in an adequate health program ? Three things at least : First, a thorough and complete physical and mental health examination of every pupil and employee in all schools annually, or at least once in every three years as a minimum, with a full record of all conditions discovered. As far as practicable, parents should be present while examinations are made, and both the pupil and parent instructed and even indoctrinated con- cerning what should be done. Second, there should be an adequate follow-up of the examinations on the part of pupils, parents, doctors, dentists, nurses, teachers, principals, superintendents, and all others concerned. This follow-up should be per- sistent and continuous. Related to and a part of this program, there should be carried on an effective, frank, and realistic program of health instruction for all pupils. Also, the programs for controlling communicable diseases should be made far more effective than they are in most of our communi- ties, especially on the preventive side. Third, school playgrounds and city parks and other recreational facilities should be provided in such number and so located as to make possible for all boys and girls a supervised program of dynamic play, so that muscular soundness and tone may be developed. In addition, study should be given to the development under school auspices of all-year camps for use in connec- tion both with the health and general education program. [Applause] There is increasing evidence that the race of the nations will be won in the long or the short stretch of the years by the nation composed of the strongest people. These expanded school services that have been described rather sketchily should not be regarded only as protective measures either for the Individual or for society. We do not want strong people and a strong country just because we know that basically they constitute our surest means of defense against enemies both within and without our country, but we want them for another reason. Our country differs from some others in that we regard the Individual human being to be of surpassing worth. We have agreed to pool our resources in order to insure for each Individual certain inalienable rights. We seek to provide an adequate, effective school program In all Its details not only because we find increasingly that such a program pays good divi- dends, but also because our schools are one of the best means we have found to carry out the promises we have made to one another about those in- alienable rights. The right kind of school program not only promotes life and liberty, but this program and they add up to at least a reasonable expectation or even guarantee that some success will be attained In the pursuit of happiness. General Sessions 49 In order that these problems of school programs may be regarded realis- tically, their implications for the school budget should be considered. More and better aids to instruction, an adequate film service for every classroom, sciiool libraries, safety education, increased health services, expanded use of buildings and grounds for all-year recreational purposes may involve the expenditure of at least an additional half billion dollars annually. What about the school plant? There has been practically no school build- ing construction throughout the country for nearly ten years. There has accumulated a need for repairs to buildings, for replacement of existing structures, and for additional buildings to meet the new demands of an expanding program that reaches a staggering total. To complicate the situation further, the present costs of both repairs and new construction have increased from 100 to 150 percent of what they were before the war. As a result of all this, a tragic choice confronts educational administra- tion: either, on the one hand, to fasten upon school systems excessive bur- dens of bonded indebtedness that may hamper school progress for years and generations to come or, on the other hand, to build badly restricted struc- tures that lack the facilities necessary for a modern educational program. Already there is some evidence that the latter alternative is being adopted, because local school authorities cannot reconcile themselves to paying more than a dollar per cubic foot for new construction ! It would be nothing short of a national calamity if the present high building costs would cause the construction of many buildings that would not only be inadequate to accom- modate the present program, but also that would hinder the expansion of that program to meet the needs of a considerable increase both in kind and extent of school services. At least a few words should be said about another side of the expansion of the school program, namely, the extension of the chronological range of the persons served. Child care centers during the war have demonstrated more forcibly than ever before the contributions that can be made to child growth and development if children can be brought into contact with school services at an earlier age. May I say parenthetically that there are no two groups that I would prefer to have represented on this platform, backing up this program this morning, than the two that are here — the Educational Policies Commis- sion, that has nobly attempted to give articulate expression to the best thinking of our profession in the last decade, and the parent-teacher as- sociations, without whom the modern school system could not operate. The Educational Policies Commission has advocated the extending of the school age downward for many children as low as three years of age. Then there is the extension at the upper level. It is to be hoped that the great growth in college enrolments is not a temporary phenomenon that will pass in a few years with the completion or tailing of? of the GI edu- cational program. It is reasonable to believe there is beginning to take place at the college level a movement somewhat similar to what has taken place at the secondary-school level. Hereafter, there will be less and less asking, "Is this person college material?" and more and more asking the 50 American Association of School Administrators question, "What changes must be made in the college curriculum to serve the needs of new types and degrees of abilit}'?" [Applause] All of this will cost money, much more money than we have ever thought of spending on our schools and colleges. Maybe the added costs for per- sonnel, program, and plant will cause the total annual bill to approach approximately eight billion dollars, or 5 percent of our present national annual income. This large amount cannot be raised on local and state bases unless new sources of revenue are discovered and boldly levied. It is un- doubtedly true that our states have not exhausted their resources for meet- ing this problem. Not only do the people as citizens of communities and states have a great stake in education, but this is also true of all the people as a whole, as a nation. It is likely that some form of federal aid, probably on the equaliza- tion principle, will be provided through national legislation within the near future. This should be followed by some kind of subsidy for the education of youth and young men and women in which the federal government will meet its responsibility for the education of its young citizens as it has done through its veterans' education program. The local community, the state, and the nation all have an interest in education in America, and some formula should be devised for determin- ing respective responsibilities. It is not expected that we should think im- mediately of increasing school and college expenditures to a total of eight billion dollars annually, but increases have been made and are being made at a rapid rate the last year or two. The slack due to the increased cost of living or the lowering of the value of the dollar is being taken up to some extent by rather general and substantial salary increases throughout the country. More of this will need to be done if the value of the dollar stabilizes at or near the present figure. We have never really given education a chance to show what it can do to promote the general welfare of our country and its people. Always we have given lip service to education, expressing our faith in its potentialities, but we have failed to provide the resources to exploit fully its potential con- tributions to our people individually and to our country as a whole. We have plenty of wealth in America to pay the cost of an effective pro- gram of education. The problem is to relate the felt need to the sources of wealth. When the people really want something, our leaders find a way to pay for it, provided the people tell them of that want. Such questions as "Where will we get the money to provide federal aid?" or "Do we want federal control of our schools?" are merely forms of shadow-boxing. Maybe there are many people in America who want good schools and other forms of social service more than they want to reduce taxes, desir- able though that may be, or maybe a majority of the people in America want good schools and other social services and think that our budgets, national, state, and local, could be reduced materially by eliminating some other forms and types of expenditures. Time will provide the answer. Political leaders will do well to study very carefully the significance of the last election majority before concluding that that majority necessarily man- General Sessions 51 dated a program of economy at the expense of social gains either in process or regarded as highly desirable by the people! [Applause] The battle to make the schools instruments or agencies for interpreting and promoting the American way of life, to make them places where the principles of freedom are understood and practiced by our boys and girls as they actually live together day by day, constitutes the most important and fundamental of all the "firsts" in educational reconstruction. Many great leaders have pointed out the relationship that should exist between the schools and our way of life, but it was the Educational Policies Commis- sion that gave practical form and substance to the movement in its publica- tions of the last ten years, in which our educational institutions were shown to he powerful instruments through which our country's purposes could be and were being attained. All the children of all the people are increasingly in the schools. If democracy as a way of life involves basically a respect for the individual human being, as you and I believe it does, where could boys and girls learn and practice that respect better than in the schools? That is, this may be true provided the schools are places where boys and girls, their teachers, and all others concerned with the school, are deliberately trying to live together successfully, with due respect for one another's rights to be different. There is much to be learned about political democracy. Many of our students, both those who drop out of school and those who graduate, know altogether too little about our government, its form, its structure, and its practical processes. The schools should remedy that condition and do so now. There is no excuse for imderteaching our own civics. No amount of leaning over backward to teach about the forms of government of other countries constitutes a defense for doing a poor job in teaching about the government of our own country. But we do know that there is much to be learned about democracy in addition to its political forms. Boys and girls must learn about its processes as well as its forms. Practical means should be devised for enabling young people to assume increasing responsibilities in community and civic affairs. These young people of ours can and should contribute to the material im- provement of life around them through real participation in actual duties to be performed. We make a big mistake in failing to utilize the creative ability and constructive help that our young people could contribute to- wards community building. Moreover, these young people have a right to participate far more than they do. The schools cannot escape a large share of responsibility for the alarm- ing extent to which the voting privilege is not exercised in America. The schools can and should do more than they have done to build democratic attitudes towards minority groups and to reconcile on a democratic basis the economic, social, and intelligence differences among human beings. Democracy as a way of life becomes real as hinnan beings learn to live the democratic way wherever they are at the time they are there. We may learn the democratic way of life as we sit together in this great auditorium, as we play together as children on a kindergarten floor, or pool our think- 52 American Association of School Administrators ing In a classroom with due regard for one another, or as we learn to con- duct ourselves properly on the dance floor, or as we learn to play according to the rules as members of school teams. We may learn to live the democratic way of life as we ride together in streetcars, as we drive our cars on the roads, as we eat together in restaurants, as we play together — as we live together, wherever we are at the time we are there. In no place can this be done better than in a good school under the leader- ship of a good teacher, who herself is trying to learn to live according to the philosophy of mutual respect. The status and position of the teacher should involve democratic relationships. The organization and administration of the school should provide opportunities for all concerned to participate in democratic processes. It is inconceivable that in 1947 there should be any school system in America that should operate on any other basis than one in which every person connected with the schools should have an appropriate voice in the determination of school policies and procedures. [Applause] I want to make this next statement very carefully because I have an amusing word which I want you to hear particularly. Professional organiza- tions of school employees on a no n -divisive basis of membership increase the effectiveness of the voice of the individual employee in dealing with subjects affecting personnel as well as the school program. "Freedom" and "democracy" are closely related words. There are men in all parts of the world who love freedom. Many of them live under political governments that deny the blessings of freedom to their people. Even in a democracy there are some men who want freedom for them- selves but would deny it to others. Our schools are free to help boys and girls learn the philosophy of freedom and also to learn how to live together as free people by living that way wherever they are at the time they are there. There Is much confused thinking among us concerning that word "free- dom," which can and should be cleared through the schools. First, freedom Is not the opposite of discipline, as so many believe. Rather, discipline Is now, always has been, and always will be the only price of freedom. We some- times fondly think that the teacher, our parents, the policeman, the law, those influences that frequently make us do what we do not want to do, control our freedom. The opposite is true. Boys and girls in school can find numerous illustrations of that fact. A good student council promotes freedom for all. Rules for games enlarge the freedom of participants. Sacrifice Involved in the discipline of much practice enlarges real freedom in the orchestra. In the right kind of school, boys and girls learn that the right kind and amount of discipline makes the difference between Individual license and the chance for all to live more freely. Second, freedom Is positive, not negative. Freedom Is not something we have when something else we do not like Is not present. At the time the Educational Policies Commission was conducting Its Investigation on learn- ing the ways to democracy, we asked a girl In a part of the country some- what distant from here what she thought the word "freedom" meant. She said, "Freedom? Let me see. Freedom, that is what you have when the General Sessions 53 teacher goes out of the room." Well, "freedom" is not the word that we use to describe a condition wiu're something we don't like is not present. "Freedom" is, rather, the word that we should use to describe the oppor- tunity that cacli individual should have to become his own best self. As each one of us struggles to bring himself to his best, he becomes free. In other words, freedom is something which each person builds for himself. Third, freedom is not something which one person does for another. A parent cannot free his child, nor can a teacher free his pupil. In forming our government, our forefathers did not make you and me free. But par- ents and teachers can help boys and girls find freedom for themselves. Because of our kind of government, you and I have a better chance of becoming free men and women in America if we are willing to pay the price that freedom entails. We must pay. In a thousand and one ways we can help one another find freedom, but no person can make another free. Finally, freedom is something that we can have individually only as we help others find it. Freedom thrives in a society of free men, and sooner or later dies among slaves. Men do not become free by climbing upon the shoulders of others, but they become free, rather, as they walk together towards freedom. We have learned that poverty, disease, famine, and even war sooner or later become the common lot of all mankind. A land of plenty cannot be maintained in the midst of a starving world. We become a free people or we become individually free as we give ourselves to help others gain their own freedom, and only that way do we become free. Amer- ica will gradually become a land of freedom through the long centuries as America does everything within her power to build a brave, free world. These and other concepts concerning freedom can and must be taught in the schools and wherever our young people and our old people live and play together. Man never has been and never will be entirely free, but he struggles eternally towards that goal. This struggle has been and always will be the most thrilling adventure in living. Without this struggle, life becomes an insipid continuity of experiences, void of challenge or destiny. Responding to the challenge to become free lifts man beyond the lower forms of life and casts his role in the stars. Yesterday the battlegrounds of freedom were in the streets, in the fields, on the beaches, in the mountain passes, on the snowcapped mountains, in the trees, in foxholes, in the trackless jungles, in the seas, on the seas, in the skies — all over the world. Today the battlegrounds of freedom are in our schools, in our places of business, on our highways, in our factories, in our clubs, on our play fields, in our homes, in our churches — wherever we are at the time we are there. As we learn to live together as free men in the every- day affairs of life, large and small, we shall build the kind of country of our dreams. We can have the kind of community, the kind of city, the kind of world we want, if each generation can have a patient enthusiasm for and a faith in the next steps in the right direction. I close this address with a bit of poetry that some of you have heard, that some of you have used, but 1 would like to write it into the record in connection with this address for it summarizes all I have tried to say and 54 American Association of School Administrators what I hope you would want to say on this subject. This simple poem was written by Mary Frances Butts. First, the poet is talking to the water lily on the breast of the river. She says: O Star on the breast of the river, O Marvel of bloom and grace. Did you fall right down from heaven, Out of the sweetest place? You are white as the thoughts of an angel. Your heart is steeped in the sun; Did you grow in the Golden City, My pure and radiant one? Then the water lily makes the reply, which I leave with you : Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven; None gave me my saintly white; It slowly grew from the darkness, Down in the dreary night. From the ooze of the silent river, I won my glory and grace, White souls fall not, O my poet, They rise to the sweetest place. FRIENDSHIP HOUR Monday Afternoon, March 3, 1947 President Hill: (At close of Third General Session, Monday Morning, March 3) The program either speaks for itself or it doesn't, and I shall not bore you with pointing out what is ahead. However, there is one comment I do want to make about the Friendship Hour this afternoon from 4:30 to 6:00. Nobody except you is responsible for that program, whether it is good or bad. It is informal. There is no receiving line. There is no program. There are light refreshments, and there is a background of music. I would like you to follow one little procedure there this afternoon, if you will. Just leave good old Bill Jones of Podunk, who is rooming with you, whom you have known all your life and who knows everything about you, go in the opposite direction and meet the young superintendent who is up here for the first time and introduce yourself. Nobody is going to intro- duce you except yourself. I suppose I have spent as much of my life going to teas as anyone here. I never went to one with a great deal of anticipa- tion, and I am glad to say that I never left one without having enjoyed myself for the most part. So, try this Friendship Hour. It is your program and does not belong to somebody on the Executive Committee. Nobody is going to be there unless you are there. I commend it to you as an experi- ment in some of the things that our two very able speakers this morning have been talking about. (See also program note on page 237.) FOURTH GENERAL SESSION Monday Evening, March J, 1947 INTERNATIONAL UNDERSTANDING: AN UNDEVELOPED HUMAN RESOURCE THE HONORABLE WILLIAM BENTON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D. C. CHAIRMAN Warren (W. Frank Warren, superintendent of schools, Durham, N. C.) : I would like to say that the American Association of School Administrators for years has been a leading advocate of the idea that teamwork among the common schools of all nations is the indispensable foundation for all efiforts to build a lasting peace and a stable world. For many years, long before UNESCO was even a dream, the convention plat- forms and the publications of this Association have emphasized and reem- phasized this note. It therefore seemed to your President and the Executive Committee especially appropriate that this first national convention, following the close of armed hostilities, should be international as well as national in character. Accordingly, letters of invitation were sent to ministers of education in forty-eight nations. Official and unofficial representatives of some of these nations, along with the United States Commissioner of Education, are our platform guests tonight. Our first speaker is a native of Minneapolis, a graduate of Yale Uni- versity, formerly connected with the Lord & Thomas advertising agency. He was president of Benton & Bowles advertising agency. He was vice- president of the University of Chicago from 1937 to 1945, and now is assistant to the chancellor. He is chairman of the Board of the Encyclo- paedia Britannica, is chairman of the Board of Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Coordinator of Inter- American Affairs. He is vicechairman of the Board of Trustees of the Committee for Economic Development and is vicechairman of the U. S. Commission of Inter-American Development. Among other responsibilities while at the University of Chicago, he was responsible for the University's radio activities, including the University of Chicago Round Table. I am very happy to present the Honorable William Benton. Assistant Secretary of State, on the subject: "International Understanding: An Undeveloped Human Resource." Mr. Benton. Mr. Benton: Mr. Chairman, Members of the American Association of School Administrators, and Honored Guests here on the platform: My assignment tonight is to tell the many thousand educators here about the state of understanding among the two billion inhabitants of the earth. My willingness to face such an audience on such a subject would seem to mark me as a man of rare innocence or at least rare audacity. [55] 56 American Association of School Administrators I am more intimidated by my theme, however, than I am by even such a distinguished audience. There is no task in today's world more important or more urgent than the task of understanding and achieving understand- ing among peoples. Only last night Secretary Marshall said, "We have a very sick world. Its needs are not only physical but in many cases, I think, spiritual or ps3^chological," Last Saturday Prime Minister Attlee said, "What the world needs today is the mutual understanding of peoples, not merely good relations among governments." Such understanding has, of course, always been desirable, but today it is indispensable if we are to have any assurance that our civilization will survive. We Americans are only beginning to grasp the immensity of the task and to make the first tentative, small, stumbling steps toward it. Thus, I address myself to this theme with humility, but with the consola- tion that there are no experts in this field and that all of us are equally new to it. You don't have to be an expert to know that worldwide understanding among ordinary people is our most important and least developed re- source. There isn't much of it today anywhere. We don't know its potentiali- ties because we have never tried to develop it, but we do know this: We had better work at international and intergroup understanding very hard and very fast. World Enemy No. 1 isn't the atomic bomb, as some seem to think. World Enemy No. 2 isn't communism or what the Communists call monop- oly capitalist fascism. World Enemy No. 3 isn't disease and disaster. World Enemies Nos. 1, 2, and 3 are ignorance, misunderstanding, and unwarranted mistrust. I heard Secretary Marshall just this morning before a congressional committee state that these are the principal conditions in today's world which magnify the risks of war. These have always been breeders of hate and of war. One reason I am not disconcerted by you experts on education is that I know you will agree with this thesis. Another reason you don't disconcert me is that my family, as I have been telling Mr. Carr, boasting about it tonight, for several generations back has consisted of teachers, missionaries, and school administrators, although I am still trying to find out just exactly what a school administrator is. I have, in fact, as the chairman told you in introducing me, attempted to be one myself, and there may be some of you who may feel that I atoned in part at least for my many years in busi- ness and my many business interests today by serving for eight years as vicepresident of the University of Chicago, which in itself is in a sense an educational institution. [Laughter] Certainly my role there can in a sense be said to be educational administration, as my present role in the State Depart- ment can perhaps be said to be educational administration at the interna- tional level. Because international understanding begins at home, I was alarmed, as I am sure this group must have been, by Benjamin Fine's remarkable report on the state of American public education in the February 10 issue General Sessions 57 of The New York Times, and I am sure that report has received much dis- cussion in your conversations today and will come in for more discussion. Dr. Fine reports that there has been a virtual stampede of teachers from our classrooms in the last five years. He reports that there are 70,000 unfilled teaching positions in the United States, that 125,000 practicing teachers have emergency or substandard certificates, that 6000 schools will close for lack of teachers. Dr. Fine attributes the threatened disintegration of our schools to grossly inadequate salaries and to a decline in the prestige of the profession. As I read this Times report, I could not help but think of my mother, about whom I was talking to Dr. Carr tonight. When my father died — and he was a professor at the University of Minnesota — Mayor Humphrey and I were saying that you are going to get a heavy dose of Minneapolis tonight — my mother was left at the age of thirty-nine with two boys and a tiny Carnegie pension. She moved out to Montana to a newly opened frontier to try to prove up on a homestead, and I went along. I haven't yet run into anyone else in Washington who has personally filed and proved up on a homestead. She began to teach in a one-room pine-board school- house. The community didn't even have enough money to give it a coat of paint. Her salary was $40 a month, eight months a \ear. The total, for those of you who are too tired by the day's activities to multiply : $320 a year. She worked out of Montana to the high school of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and out of Fergus Falls back to Minneapolis. Her friends thought her ill- advised when she decided to give up that secure Minneapolis position and enrol as a graduate student at Teachers College, where she took her degree while I was an undergraduate at Yale. Soon she was heading a famous girls school, of which she used to boast to me, "I have the highest tuition west of Pittsburgh." Certainly, before she was fifty, she was one of the highest paid women in American education. I tell this story not because it is unique. It could be paralleled by the stories of countless dozens of you here in this room. But I tell it because it is rep- resentative of a splendid tradition in American education, a tradition of faith in education and of personal dedication to education and of oppor- tunity for the individual with drive and ability in education. Dr. Fine's study indicates that this kind of devotion and that kind of opportunity are disappearing from American education — the challenge and the deep interest that sent tens of thousands of our teachers to summer graduate work every year and that twenty-five years ago led more than a fourth of our college graduates every year into teaching and into school administration. Of course, it is disappearing at the worst possible time. It is dwindling while the need for an educated citizenry is becoming ever more acute. It is receding just as America emerges into responsibility for world leadership, just when we are required to assume responsibility for solving new and baffling international problems, just when our example becomes of para- mount importance to the world, and just when civilization has indeed be- come a race between education and disaster. 58 American Association of School Administrators I hope what I have said up to now won't make any of you think I am trying to use this phrase, "understanding among peoples," in a vague or pious sense. Understanding is, in fact, not as tangible or as easy to measure as a factory or a division of troops, but it is an even more real force in world affairs. Even dictators have had to acknowledge that. True understanding among peoples can be a powerful force for peace. Misunderstanding can be a powerful force making for tension, conflict, and war. Evidence pours into my office daily that the United States is being pre- sented to the peoples of many countries as reactionary, imperialistic, mili- taristic, lawless, politically immature, unstable, rich but strife-ridden, long on mechanical ability and short on culture. Such stereotypes about America appear with insistent and monotonous regularity in all countries under Soviet influence, but they appear also, with variations, and in less violent form, in countries with which we have a freer exchange of information, and they are potentially dangerous. Again, Secretary Marshall this morning described in detail to this congressional committee his feeling of the great potential danger in what I have just described. What I have said about foreign images of America has its counterpart in American stereotypes about foreign peoples. The volume of news and information from abroad now available to the American people through our press and radio is tremendous, contrasted with what is available to for- eign peoples about us, but we in America still tend to think in cliches and interpret the news in terms of cliches. Latin Americans are too often Gauchos who dance the rumba and indulge in periodic revolutions. Russians, too often, are enigmatic, stubborn, and mechanically inept. The British are a stolid though decent folk, and the Chinese are philosophic coolies. These are pleasant myths, but we can't afford them any more. We must learn that human beings everywhere are very much like us. They have per- sonal problems very much like our own. We must learn that foreign nations have economic and social problems that may or may not be solved as we solve ours. We must learn that the political institutions of other nations have their roots in history, as have ours, and we must learn both the institu- tions and the history. We must learn from philosophy what is desirable, from history and politics what is possible, then apply all our resourcefulness to devising ways to make the desirable possible. Such learning was once the province of scholars. Today it must become part of the equipment of a citizen. I am not asking for a curriculum built around courses on peace. The kind of knowledge needed by a citizen today tends to develop, as it always has, out of a sound, liberal education. But we must be conscious of the fact that the problems of peace and of relations among nations now supersede in importance all domestic problems. Peace is, in fact, the paramount domestic issue. In facing the world, we have been particularly proud of the educational opportunities we offer our youth, but you would be disappointed, if you sat where I sit, to find that respect for our good works by observers abroad, General Sessions 59 and admiration for our social, moral, and intellectual qualities, lags far behind knowledge of our economic power and our military might. Our leadership is accepted less because of our virtues than because of our physi- cal strength. To me the most interesting and significant statement in Dr. Fine's report is the following: The United States is spending 1.5 percent of its national income for its schools; Great Britain is spending 3 percent; the Soviet Union is spending 7.5 percent. Every major power except the United States is sharply increasing its budget for education. The contrast between the United States and the Soviet Union applies to absolute figures as well as to percents. The current Soviet budget, Dr. Fine tells me, shows eight billion dollars for education, compared with the two and one-half billions we are spending for our public elementary and high schools. This Russian figure does not include items for physical education, scientific institutes, and various cultural activities. There seem to be some things we can learn from Russia. One of them is to take education more seriously, and to take ideas more seriously. The figures Dr. Fine cites for domestic education in the three countries are roughly paralleled proportionately by their expenditures to project their ideas and information about themselves to foreign countries. The United States today, in a program under my direction, is spending nineteen million dollars a year through our overseas information program to explain our- selves to foreign peoples. Great Britain is spending two to three times that much for the same purpose. Figures are not available for the Soviet Union, but from the scale of their activities I should judge that more money is being spent to promote Russian ideas than by all other major powers combined on their information and cultural programs. The Russians take ideas very seriously indeed. Much of what the Russians do in the field of ideas, both at home and abroad, we would call indoctrination and propaganda, rather than educa- tion and information. As a matter of fact, they would call it that, too. They frankly regard facts and ideas, and the means of communicating facts and ideas, as instruments and weapons of national and revolutionary policy. Russia's leaders claim they have found in dialectical materialism something close to the final and absolute truth about history, economics, and the good society. They are intolerant of error or divergence, either in philos- ophy or tactics. Why should they encourage error if they claim they have the truth? These leaders go to great lengths to spread their ideas of the truth and to attack and suppress what they regard as error. The western democracies place the burden of determining the truth upon the individual. Dr. Beeby and I were discussing this at dinner tonight. Through education the western countries hope to provide the individual with the tools of reason that will enable him to recognize truth. Through a policy of freedom of information they present the issues to him in judg- ment. The western method is, we believe, the surest road to the truth for the long run, and the only one which is appropriate to human dignity. It is by nature slower and more expensive. Yet we in America find ourselves slight- 60 American Association of School Administrators ing education at home, minimizing ideas, failing adequately to explain our- selves to other peoples, and blinking indifferently in the midst of what Secre- tary Marshall calls "a riot of propaganda." I have emphasized the dark side of the picture. There are encouraging signs as vv^ell, streaks of light in an overcast sky. One is the creation of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Or- ganization, about which I am told Dr. Carr spoke to you this afternoon. Another is the establishment in the Department of State of the Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs. A third is the passage of the Fulbright Bill, under which a portion of the proceeds of the sale of our overseas surpluses may be used for educational and cultural purposes. A fourth is the developing pressure in support of worldwide freedom of information. I want to mention UNESCO and our State Department's Information Office briefly. As I am sure you learned from Dr. Carr, UNESCO is a David facing a Goliath of ignorance. UNESCO obviously is not going to bring about, in a few years, the moral and intellectual revolution that is required by the age ahead of us. It can now move gradually toward a more modest goal ; to help dispel, in some degree, the unwarranted fears, suspi- cions, and hatreds that hang like a fog over the world today. UNESCO will undertake a major effort to reduce the barriers that now obstruct the free flow of communications among peoples. We know from bitter experience that even highly literate peoples, when they are cut off from a full, honest, and continuous account of developments among other peoples, can be propagandized and bullied into aggressive belligerency. UNESCO is to survey the restrictions of the flow of information and ideas across international boundaries, and the suppression and distortion of information and ideas by any influence. It will stimulate the flow of stu- dents, teachers, scholars, and scientists across national boundaries. I am sure Dr. Carr told you of its proposed worldwide attack on the problem of illiteracy. In cooperation with the United Nations, UNESCO will explore the possibility of creating a worldwide broadcasting network, under inter- national auspices. Such a network might bring to ordinary people every- where, and in many languages, an account of the history, the achievements, the problems, the hopes and the aspirations, the music and the literature of other peoples. You should interest yourselves also in the new Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs in the Department of State, the OIC. This office is designed to accomplish, on a national and bilateral basis, what UNESCO is designed to accomplish on an international and multilateral basis. Its function is to project to foreign peoples a full and fair picture of American life and of the aims and policies of the United States Gov- ernment. The OIC observed its first birthday on January 1. It has maintained small information staffs abroad and United States information libraries used by three million people in sixty-two countries last year. It exhibited non- General Sessions 61 commercial documentary motion pictures about American life to some one hundred million people overseas last year. It furnished background material and full texts of official statements to editors throuj^hout the world. It broadcast by short wave around the clock in twenty-four lanpjuages. Two weeks ago today a twenty-fifth language was added — Russian. This office has also been the focal point for a program of scientific and cultural cooperation, and of exchange of students, with the other American republics. It awaits congressional authorization to extend this work to the rest of the world. The lack of this authorization, which will be requested in a bill to be introduced shortly, is one of the great gaps in our program. It is a gap which I hope Congress will shortly fill. Our budget for these OIC activities is less than one-quarter of one percent of the budget of the Armed Forces. Yet one who studies this pro- gram can only conclude that it is a program designed for national security. There was a time last year when it seemed likely there would be no budget at all. As a matter of fact, that time is here again right now, this very minute. These new activities are still not recognized by Congress and our people as an important and integral part of the conduct of our foreign relations. The exchange of students is an example of how we must raise our sights. No single activity in the field of international understanding promises so much over the decades as the exchange of stiidents and teachers. If such exchanges are to be fully effective in the sense that, in the issue between war and peace, they could actually weigh the balance for peace, they must be imdertaken on a scale never before attempted. I am glad to say that despite the overcrowding of our educational institutions, eleven thousand foreign students were enrolled here in 1946, and I look forward with confidence to the day when the number will be fifty thousand a year. If its full potentialities are realized, the Fulbright Bill will make it possible for tens of thousands of Americans to study abroad during the next twenty years. This year seventy-four British and seventy-four American elementary and secondary schoolteachers traded positions for a year. I should like to see such exchanges greatly increased and extended to other countries, and I would hope that an organization such as this would find this field suitable for its interest. We Americans have always spent cheerfully on the cure of our diseases. We have been extremely niggardly in spending on prevention. Every ad- vertiser knows how much easier it is to sell a cure than to persuade people to take preventive action. The new realities of international life demand prevention. The cures of international illnesses have become too costly. The proposed federal budget for 1948 calls for 7.3 billion dollars for the Veterans Administration — three times Dr. Fine's figure of 2.5 billions for elementary and high schools — which is a heritage of our past interna- tional illnesses. It calls also for five billion dollars to service the national debt, most of it due to the same illnesses. It provides 11.2 billions for the Armed Forces, in the event major surgery may be needed in the future. Those three items add up to two-thirds of the proposed federal budget. 62 American Association of School Administrators It would seem we Americans should now have learned to take seriously the adage about the ounce of prevention, if only on a dollars-and-cents basis. There are those of us who believe that education and the cultivation of understanding among peoples offer the big chance for prevention. Yet the amounts our nation spends for domestic education are declining relative to the economy, and the amounts we spend to promote international under- standing are a pittance in total and a pittance compared with the need, with the opportunity, and with the alternatives. Chancellor Hutchins of the University of Chicago says the task the world faces is a colossal educational task. He remarked recently, "It looks hopeless, but it is not as bad as it looks. In the first place, we do not know what education can accomplish because we have never tried it. In the second place, the means of communication are now so numerous, rapid, and cheap, we can communicate it to the ends of the earth." Our military leaders, like our political leaders, are increasingly aware of this. General Eisenhower has said, "I am convinced that the world can- not stand another global war and, as I see it, the thing which can prevent such a tragedy happening is education." Admiral Nimitz has said, "Ameri- cans must be led to understand the benefit of information and cultural programs." Perhaps I could conclude by asking this group what contribution you can make to this colossal task. You can act in your individual roles as citizens. Through this and other organizations j'ou can help our fellow Ameri- cans to understand the nature of the problem. You can cooperate with educational groups in other countries, through UNESCO or independently. Your invitations to our distinguished guests here tonight indicate your cooperation. There are concrete steps you can take in your own communities. You can ask local editors and radio stations to give greater attention to foreign affairs. You can arrange teacher exchanges with foreign schools in your own high schools, and teacher and student exchanges through your local colleges. You can organize study groups. You can undertake surveys to determine the nature and extent of the misconceptions about foreign peoples and foreign affairs in your town or city. Every conceivable step we Americans can take to advance understanding among peoples is not a step too many. If I have a message, that must be it. All of us realize that a new role has been thrust upon our nation, involving new responsibilities and unprecedented new risks. We are not yet following this realization to its consequences in action. Only a mere beginning has been made in fashioning instruments appropriate to the new realities — instruments of action. Let us use them boldly and imaginatively. Understanding, confidence, and example, the bulwarks of community and national life, now become the bulwarks of the world community. As our globe becomes, perforce, one great community, you can bring to bear, in an ever larger sphere, your talents, your training, and your devotion, as citizens and as educators, to the building of peace in the minds of men, and in the minds of men everywhere. General Sessions 63 THE AGE OF CRISIS AND ITS IMPACT UPON EDUCATION the honorable HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, MAYOR OF MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA Chairman Warren: 1 think wc have a rare treat in our next speaker. He became the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, in July 1945. He has the distinction at thirty-five of being one of the youngest men ever to serve as mayor of a large metropolitan city. He came into office with the united support of organized labor, church groups, business, professional, and educational organizations. His program embraces every aspect of city government, and his dynamic personality has made possible tremendous city improvements. He has a noteworthy record in labor-management relations, has personally negotiated ten major labor disputes, involving schoolteachers and hospital workers. He possesses unusual talents as an administrator combined with an educator's appreciation of human values. He has the respect of all political parties in making democracy work at the local level. He was chosen as the outstanding Minneapolitan of 1945, was selected as the man of the year in Minnesota, and the outstanding young man of the year in 1945 by the Minneapolis S/or and Tribune and the Minnesota Junior Association of Commerce. He has been honored by being appointed to many national committees, which I will not name here. Prior to his election as mayor, he was professor of political science at Macalester College, and previously was a member of the University of Minnesota political science staff. He has degrees from the University of Minnesota and Louisiana State University. I am glad to present the Honorable Hubert H. Humphrey, mayor of Minneapolis. His subject: "The Age of Crisis and Its Impact upon Education." Mayor Humphrey. Mayor Humphrey: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates to this Conference of the American Association of School Administrators, and my Distinguished Friends and Honored Guests on the platform: You know, folks, if I could get all my people back in ^Minneapolis to believe all that has been said about me in this introduction, I wouldn't have any worries the next three or four months. What I am doing down here in Atlantic City when I have a campaign for re-election is more than I know. I don't see five votes in the audience. But, then, every once in a while, you know, misery loves company, and every once in a while an old broken-down schoolteacher like myself gets a little bit lonesome to meet some good school people, and I thought that even if I had to travel half-way across the continent to do it, it would be an inspirational moment for me. I have found it that already. First of all, as I said to our very able superintendent of schools of Minneapolis, who was kind enough to take me out to dinner tonight — he is doing quite well ; he took me out to a good dinner. "Mr. Goslin," I said, "you know, it isn't bad for a boy from South Dakota to walk up and 64 American Association of School Administrators down the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. I never thought I would be able to do it." As a matter of fact, when I lived back in the middle western area of South Dakota before I came to Minneapolis, I didn't believe that there was that much lumber in the whole country. Then when I came to this meeting tonight and found that the Assistant Secretary of State was a former Minneapolitan and that he had folks all over Minnesota with the name Benton, and not a Swede or a Norwegian in the bunch, I was more than happy and more than privileged to know that I could be a part of this program. This is the first time, by the way, that I have ever been in a meeting where I have heard so much talk so far away about Minneapolis. It is really wonderful. As a matter of fact, I have had many a person stop me during the day and ask me if I were from St. Paul. I don't know whether I looked hungry because I had been on strike or what it was, but they asked me about it. I am motivated at this particular time to tell you a story which is characteristic of our people, because it is so good to know that you can come away from home and hear so much about your home town and so little about your rival — so little that is good, an^'way. Back in IMinneapolis many years ago when our schoolboard was having its difficulties (of course we have none now), there was a great argument in the schoolboard as to whether or not we should put the Bible in the Minneapolis schools. One of our schoolboard members was none other than that distinguished citizen of Minnesota of some time past by the name of Magnus Johnson. We called him "Yonson" back in our state. As Magnus sat on the schoolboard day after day, he found that his was the deciding vote as to this most important question. The superintendent of schools at that time was terribly disturbed because he couldn't get a definite answer from his board members, and finally on the last day he said to Mr. Johnson, "Mr. Johnson, I would like to have you give me your answer as to whether or not you think we ought to have the Bible in the IVIinneapolis schools." Magnus, with his Scandinavian brogue, said, "I tell you, Mr. Superin- tendent, I have to take that book home and look it over over the week end." So, Mr. Johnson, with characteristic Scandinavian speed, took the book home over the week end, and he spent a good deal of time reading it from cover to cover and chapter to chapter. When he came back on Monday to report, the superintendent said, "Well, Magnus, what are you going to say about the decision as to the Bible in the Minneapolis schools?" Magnus said, "I tell you, Mr. Chairman, I been reading that book from cover to cover, from verse to verse, and chapter to chapter, and I see a whole lot in there about St. Paul but not one damned word about Minneapolis." So, my friends, we made a decision, and may I say that was one of the quickest decisions that any schoolboard in the United States has ever made about any fundamental question. I stand before you tonight as one who is interested in education, American public education, from many different points of view. First of all, I have (jeneral Sessions 6^ been, ami I still think I am, a teacher. Second. I am a parent, and 1 am vitally interested in the success of American public education and its development because 1 am a parent. Third. 1 am a politician, and 1 am proud of it, because as a person vested with public responsibility, I have ^rown more and more to appreciate the importance of American public education and, likewise. I have had some opportutu'ty to view it from an anahtical and critical point of view. Tonight 1 am ^oini: to talk to you not as a politician, not as a teacher; I am goinfx to talk to you as Hubert Humphrey, dad of three good children, who is really interested in how his children are goinp; to get along in this world. I am going to talk to you as a citizen, yes, one of those people that you hear a lot about, a taxpayer. I am going to talk to you as a voter, and that ought to wake nou up. because voters can do things even to school- teachers and school administrators. I am going to talk to vou as John Q. Public ought to be talking to you and ought to have said to you a long time ago, and you ought to have a chance to say something to him. I don't need to tell you that we meet in unprecedented times. I think everybody has come to the conclusion by now that this world is in a little dizzy spell. I imagine that every one of us realizes that we are not exactly livmg in that period that somebody is always talking about, that nobody can ever find, called "the good old days." We haven't returned to normalcy because there is none to return to. We haven't acquired the victory, because all we have done is win the war. We haven't attained peace because peace is never attained. It is not a static thing. We are in the process of readjusting ourselves to something that we may call democratic living. Yes, I think that we are in the process of just getting our feet on the ground again and getting our heads clean of the fear, the hate, and the viciousness of world- wide struggle, and we are beginning again to think about how we can live with the guy next door, with our neighbor. jVIr. Benton has already set the theme for all that I have to say. T am going to talk about understanding, too, but I am going to talk about it a little bit more on the community level. I am going to say that before you are going to be able to save this world, you are going to have to take care of your own back yard. I am going to say to you tonight that before you are going to be able to save the national picture, you had better start saving Bufifalo, New York, and St. Paul, Minnesota. [Applause] I am going to say to jou that as Main Street goes, so goes this nation, and as this nation goes, so goes this world. The fellow who is running Main Street is sitting in this audience, if he wants to run it. Main Street will do just what you want it to do if you have the courage to stand up and tell it what to do or even advise and consult with it. So, we are really the masters of our own destiny. We have it, as one great American said, within ourselves to make this world all over again. The trouble is, most of the time we arc too indifferent and too lazv and too timid even to make our own lives over again, much less the world. I think that World War II ought to stand out as a pretty good example of civilization gone mad anii, let me say, of the inability of education \ip 66 American Association of School Administrators to date to be able to correct much of anything, because any time that you can get the whole world struggling with and strangling each other, I think that all of us will admit there must have been something wrong with what we call formal education. We have arrived at the point now of determining whether or not we are going to be able to bind up the wounds of this war. We are going to find out whether or not, through the formal processes of education, through our group experiences and our individual experiences, we can learn to live together in peace and security. We are going to find out whether or not the same smart, intelligent people who could create the atomic bomb have enough good sense, have enough moral fortitude and enough moral stamina to be able to learn how to get along with each other and live as neighbors. I want to underwrite what Mr. Benton said, that atomic energy is dangerous only in the hands of a bigoted, prejudiced, intolerant people. Atomic energy is a vicious instrument only when it is handled by people who have lost all sense of moral consciousness or all sense of civic and community responsibility. So far as educators are concerned, they don't need to be worried about Oak Ridge. School administrators don't need to worry about whether or not the new bomb is stronger than the one that was used at Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Either one will blow the daylights out of us. What we need to worry about is whether or not we can bring enough people under the influence of democratic teaching and teachings of philosophy, of humanitarianism, and respect for the other man's 'point of view, so that they won't start throwing bombs at each other. They have already made the bombs, they know how to make them, and they can continue to make them ; all we need to be sure of is that they do not use them for destructive purposes. I have selected a topic that is a rather large one, but when I get away from home I like to speak on big topics. You know, I am so circumscribed at home. I have to talk about the new method of collecting rubbish. Once in a while I get a chance to move out to the PTA and talk about how we can finance our schools. So, when I get this far away from home, I just take the whole world in, and I am going to talk on "The Age of Crisis and Its Impact upon Education." That gives me a lot of room to talk, too, because I think you can bring just about everything into that particular subjectmatter, particularly when you talk about the age of crisis. But I am serious about an age of crisis, and I don't think very many educators have been. I don't think the age of crisis came in just before Franklin Roosevelt or after he went out. I don't happen to believe that the age of crisis was on "Black Thursday" in October 1929. I think we have been living through a half century of crisis. I think we have been living through a sort of silent world revolution that occasionally breaks forth into an eruption, that we have twice had, called a world war. I think the age of crisis has been with us ever since the end of the Victorian Era, when we began to see the disintegration of all that is old — old world politics and old world economics. These two wars have just brought it to our attention more forcibly, and they have made some people who hadn't been General Sessions 67 doinj; any thinkinp; for fifty years start doinji; a little thinkinjj; for fifty minutes. It took two wars to do that. \W have found that imperialism is not only a nasty old word that lots of people like to talk about, but it is impractical and it is no lonjj;er feasible in a world that is under the impact of democratic ideolofjy. I think we know now that you can't live half slave and half free, and I think some people are bef^inninp: to understand, even in hi^h places in finance, that \()u can't have a world half prosperous and the rest of it poverty-stricken and be able to have any semblance of political or economic or social security. Then, what characterizes this ajje of crisis? You know these things, too. Political revolutions, war, unemployment, restlessness, insecurity, all sorts of fantastic literature and art, a jjeneral breakdown in the morale and even in the morals of people. Those are the little thinf^s that everybody who reads Life maj^azine can point to. That is all you need to read. You don't need to ^o any further than a fifteen-cent education. I wonder how many of us have taken this really seriously. I am not only going to talk this evening about what I think is happening to the schools fi- nancially in terms of personnel and how I am worried about it, but I am going to talk to you about what you have been teaching in your classrooms and what a miserable failure "we" have sometimes made. I say "we" because I have been part of the team. I don't want anyone to believe that I think American education has been a failure. I am perfectly willing, like the typical politician, to "point with pride," but I also "view with alarm," and I am going to "view with alarm" tonight, if you don't mind, and we will all get together early in the morning and "point with pride." We have all patted each other on the back collectively and individually, and I think it is about time that we had a little process of self-analysis. Three factors have stood out in this period of world crisis this past half century. What are those factors? First, industrialization and the development of metropolitan areas, big cities, urban centers. Second, a change in world politics, in international relations. Maybe it isn't so manifest as some of us would like to believe, but I am here to say that the old days of power politics, of divide and conquer, the old days of secret double-dealing, of maneuvering, are over. If not over, believe you me, they are in the very bad stage of a coronary thrombosis with a poor recovery. People everywhere are seeking freedom, and they ^ even willing to kill a few people to get it. They are even willing to overthrow govern- ments and to shoot would-be dictators and to throw out political parties that have bungled. They are willing to do anything internationally to attain the right to live and to let live. There is a third factor in this world crisis that we have had, and that is that there is a greater understanding by almost every J(m" in town, by almost every plain citizen, of what we mean by democracy. This is almost paradoxical, but may I say that there has been less understanding among school people about democracy than there has been among the parents of the children that you are teaching. I am going to lead of^ on that because I think that is fundamental. 68 American' Association of School Administrators When 1 used to teach political theory, we used to talk about getting funda- mental principles. What are your assumptions? Let's get principles first. So, before we talk about urbanization or world politics or the troubles 'of the school, let's ask: Do we have a philosophy of education? Do we have a philosophy of life? What do you mean when you stand up before the public and before your classroom and say, "Hurrah for democracy!" or "I believe in social justice"? Gerald L. K. Smith says that. Does he mean the same thing that you do — or haven't you thought it out and he has? I have watched all too many teachers in my few short days on this earth get up and talk to young Americans about democracy, about free elections, free speech, without any critical analysis at all of what they are talking about and without ever trying to explain to the student, to the boy, and to the girl, what he rej^lly means; as they say in the vernacular, what the score is. Have we really made up our minds that we really believe in democracy? I am prejudiced. I want you to know that before 1 talk to you any more. I am a biased person. I believe in democracy. I don't believe in fascism, and I don't believe in communism. I believe in democracy, and I believe that every teacher in the American public-school system ought to believe in it and that you ought to find out whether or not he does believe in it. [Applause] Then, what do 1 mean when I say I believe in democracy? First of all, I believe in what I read on that facsimile that is hanging on the wall of your school, that the janitor dusts and looks at, but which nobody else looks at, and which doesn't look very good. The paper is rather yellow now, and not very many people have been reading it, but it took quite a little while to write it, and it was a very young man who did the job. It starts out something like what we have heard tonight right from this platform: "We hold these truths to be self-evident . . ." Yes, there is no argument about it. We hold them to be self-evident. That is our creed. It is a matter of faith. ". . . that all men are created equal." Do you really believe that, or are you just kidding somebody? and ". . . that they are endowed by their Creator." Not by the Constitution, not by a president, not by a political party, not by a monarch, but by God Almighty. ". . . with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hamDiness." I believe tnat, and I do believe in the doctrine of natural law. I do believe that there is a moral law, and 1 do believe that all men are equal before God and before the law, or at least they should be. I happen to believe that the only thing that differentiates man from the beast is the fact that he was given certain inalienable rights by his Creator and that he was created in the image of his Maker. I believe that, and I tell every student I ever taught about it so that we understand each other before we start. You see, I don't believe that democracy is telephones. I never did believe tliat democracy was tin cans and Ford cars, whether they were V-8's or old tin lizzies. I never did believe that democracy was production, because Hitler had all of that. We may have more telephones than anybody else General Sessions 69 in the world, and we may do more talki'np; over them, bvit I don't know what we are sayinp; — and that's what is important. \Ve may have more bathtubs than all the rest of the world put together, and I have been tauf^ht that in school as a freshman or sophoinore in h'\\ih school. I know that we are cleaner on the outside, but nobody has really examined us from the inside. To me, there has been too much identification of what we call democrac\ in ticker tape, bathtubs, telephones, tin cans, and bubble gum and bubble baths. 1 happen to believe that we jiet all of those thinj^s in larger quantities than anybody else in this world because we do have a social system which makes it possible. In other words, bubble gum, bubble baths, telephones, and all the rest of it are a by-product of a wa>' of life which says what? That all men are created equal. They are a by-product of a way of life which says, further, that every man is endowed with a certain sense of dignity, of worthwhileness; which further says that every man should have the right to express himself, should have the right to participate, should have the right to be in things, regardless of his race, color, or creed. We go on just a little bit further to say that not only do we believe this for Americans, but we believe in the concept of man and in the con- cept of the brotherhood of men, which means that democracy is a philosophy of universality, which means that it can never be circumscribed by juris- tlictional limits that we call boundary lines, which means that democracy is a worldwide philosophy that can embrace all people all over this world. 1 believe in these things, and from there I am going to start to work with you. I don't think that all teachers believe in it, and I will tell you w^hy. In order to fulfil this kind of program, we have got to have some people participating in politics; we have got to have some people who are willing to stick their necks out, as they say; we have got to have some people who are willing to go on out and run up against the tough battle of being called names, of being before the public, of giving it and taking it from the public platform in public debate. May I say that American public education has been an innocent partner to a conspiracy in this country to make every American believe that Ameri- can politics is crooked, to make everybody believe that American politicians are either corrupt or inefficient. There has been literally a premeditated conspiracy in this country to keep good people out of public office, because good people in public office will understand democracy and they won't permit racial bigotry ; they will have enough moral courage to see that it doesn't happen. Political opportunists will permit anything, for they have their price, but people of moral stature and of political courage in American politics, who believe that they can be clean and that they can make honest decisions, are being frightened out of the American political arena by what I call a premeditated conspiracy to tell every mother and father, "Above all things, don't let your son go into politics. It is better to be a saloon keeper. It is better to be a fan dancer. For goodness' sake, don't let him (or her) dirty himself in the arena of American politics!" 70 American Association of School Administrators Am I wrong? Well, Dr. Gallup of Princeton doesn't think so, because it was just two years ago that in a poll of public opinion he found that 80 per- cent of the mothers of America specifically stated that they did not want their sons or their daughters to have anything to do with American politics or political parties. Friends, you have been teaching those mothers and those fathers some years back, and you are teaching their children now. If you keep that up, you won't need to worry about the condition of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. You won't need to worry about who is in The White House and who isn't there. I will tell you who will be there. It will be the riffraff of America, instead of the good people of America, because you will have frightened them out ; you will have kept young men and women out, who otherwise would want to go into it, because you will have told them ghost stories ; you will have made them believe in the weird stories of some sinister force that will be everlastingly at them if they should ever once enter into the people's business, which is politics, in a democracy. I like politics. I am glad I am in it. I think it is the people's business. I think it is the greatest honor that can ever be bestowed upon a man to be elected to public office, regardless of what office it may be ; and it is about time, if you will permit me to say so, my good friends of the educational profession, that you started a little public-relations campaign for America. It is about time that you started selecting young men and women out of the classrooms of America and started telling them, "You are the kind of person who ought to be elected to the schoolboard," "You are the sort of person who ought to dedicate his life to teaching," "You are the sort of person who ought to go into the city council," "You ought to go to the state legis- lature," "You have the ability to be governor," "You have every right to aspire to the halls of Congress or to the Presidency." When are we going to start doing that instead of going around and saying, "How are you coming along with your bookkeeping? My! You would make a good fifteenth assistant accountant for the Standard Oil Company," or somebody else. We need them, too, but I am here to tell you that fifteenth assistant accountants will never save this world. They may help, but they can be victimized and they can be enslaved by an unscrupu- lous political machine in any country. Politics is important, and it is part of democracy. You see, there is some- thing else than just philosophy. Anybody can get up here and give you a sermon about democracy, but I am up here to tell you that you have got to get out and participate in democracy. You have to start speaking to groups. You have to start running for office. You have to be a part of an organization. You have to be willing to be a participant in community activities if you want to save public education. Are you going just to stand on the sidelines and say, "Isn't it too bad? People don't understand our predicament. People just don't realize that we must have more money. People just don't appreciate the problems of the schoolteacher." Why should they? You have never told them anything about them. Schoolteachers have been able to keep bigger secrets than any General Sessions 71 other {jroup of people that I have ever known! They just won't talk about school problems. It is about time we started to talk about school problems. I would like to remind the assembled audience tonight for whom \ou are working;. You school administrators, teachers, and board members are working for the people of America. \'ou have the greatest trust that any person ever hopes to have. You have been entrusted with the future welfare of American youth. It is your obligation to provide them with the tools to seek out information. It is your responsibility not to teach them what to think, but how to think ; and it is your responsibility, if you please, to re- member at all times that the American public educational system is the property of the American people, that the schoolhouse doesn't belong to the superintendent, it doesn't belong to the schoolboard ; it belongs to the people that live in the community; it is theirs, and it is theirs by vested right. I almost got away from what I was going to tell you about industrializa- tion, but it all fits in, because we have a lot of problems in America today. We have problems of housing. You have heard about them, haven't you? We have problems of public health. We have problems of illiteracy. We have problems of intolerance, religious, and racial. We have problems of finances, and we have problems of labor and management. I should like just to say that in the main we have missed the boat in educating the American people about these problems. Let me give you a good example. From 1920 to 1930 we should have been having some kind of instruction in the field of internationalism. We had the League of Nations. It was a going instrumentality. We had World War I, which proved the fallacy of national sovereignty. We had all sorts of people — including a Woodrow ^Vilson, a Charles Evans Hughes, an Elihu Root, a ^Villiam Howard Taft, and others too numerous to mention — who told you, the best minds in America, that the only hope of America and the only hope of the world was international understanding. Yet, I submit to you that you brought up a generation of isolationists. What were we teaching in the classrooms? Well, we were letting too many speakers come by to address our groups about the validity of high protective tariffs, even though it bankrupted the country. We had too many people who were willing to talk about prosperity being around the corner when every intelligent economist in the country was telling us that a pit of disaster and despair was around the corner — and you know it. You people know this. You know that during the period of the 1920's when we were talking in pious terms in church and in assembly about the dignity of labor, you didn't believe in it. You didn't believe in the dignity of labor. We were educating people to be managers of J. C. Penney's, not xvorkers in J. C. Penney 's. Yes, everybody was going to school so he could get out of work, not so he could learn how to work. That is one of the basic problems in America today. I hear people say every day, "The trouble with these working people is that they don't want to work." We put them through a public-school system which never once really talked about the hard labor of being a machinist or a sheet metal worker, but which talked about how 72 American Association of School Administrators he could get a nice mahogany desk with seven buzzers and three secretaries. I ask this audience how many of you actually gave a course in trade union- ism in your schools and really went into the life of organized labor? How many of you had the courage to stand up in your classrooms and tell the boys and the girls that the hall the constitutional fathers met in was put together by the Carpenters and Joiners Union in Philadelphia? How many of you had the courage to say that trade unionism in America is as typically American as the Declaration of Independence? We had them here even before we got that paper. How many of you have really analyzed for your young Americans the fact that most of them are not going to be managers of Penney's, that most of them are going to work in the factories and in the shops and in the offices, that most of them are going to be wage earners, that 75 percent of them are going to end up being wage earners even under presentday conditions? How many of you have had the courage to stand up before your audiences and ask them not either to accept or reject organized labor as an instrument of power or as an economic instrument in America, but to recognize the fact that they may be members of it? Have you really taught in American schools responsibility of labor? Have you really taught the young Ameri- cans who are coming up, going into the machine shops and going into the mass production factories, what we mean by the CIO and the AF of L? Have you taught them about vertical and horizontal unionism? Have you taught them about the meaning of industrial unionism? Have you taught them about the closed shop, the union shop, maintenance of membership? Do they know what they mean when they say "scab"? Do we really know what organized labor has been as a political and social force in America? I will tell you the answer. We do not. The reason that there is so much prejudice and so much misunderstanding in America about labor and management relationships is that we have never taught anything about either labor or management. We have told fairy stories about the Industrial Revolution, which never "revoluted," which only "evoluted," and we have had a lot of people believing that the only thing that was revolutionary about the Industrial Revolution was a few^ strikes. Surely, we have even had, let me say, incompetence in teaching about the structure of corporate capital in this country. Friends, all I am asking j'ou is this: Have we taught the realities of life, the facts of life? I submit to you that we have not. We still worship small business in the classroom, despite the fact that big business is getting bigger and bigger and that it is essential that it does. We have got to have big business in order to have big production. We still go around talking about the little worker, and we have people who have even talked about how wonderful it was that Lincoln was poor, so he could be great, not ever understanding that he was great despite the fact that he was poor. Yes, I say that American education has a job on its hands today, and we have a social lag such as no other people has had for a long time, because ours is an important job. The fate of the world rests on America. Instead General Sessions 73 of having nice, good, respectable people cussing out this fellow and that fellow for what they are doing, we had better start examining what we taught those fellows when they were back in school. I can honestly say that I never heard a word about a trade union until I was nineteen years of age, and I graduated from a good high school, with good college-trained teachers instructing me. I never knew anything about other economic systems; didn't know much about the one we had. either, except I knew that it didn't always work so hot. .My father was sometimes poor and sometimes well of?. I want to know whether or not we are teaching young Americans today that there are about two islands of capitalism left — Canada and the United States — and that the rest of the world seems to be going toward nationaliza- tion or socialism. I am not saying that is good, I am not saying that is bad, but I am saying it is the truth. I wonder whether or not in our public-school classrooms we have been able to differentiate between what I call the totalitarian state, which prac- tices a police method of keeping people in line, which forces them into line, which denies them civil liberty, which denies them political expression, but has state ownership of property; and the state, such as England, where you have civil liberty, where you have political freedom, where you have public education, where you have freedom of movement, but at the same time you have socialization of enterprise. I think that we have got to start teaching these things, friends, because this is the world that we are living in. We are not living in the world of Pollyanna. We are not even in the world of Alexander Hamilton. We are not in the world of Thomas JefTerson or even in the world of Franklin D. Roosevelt. We are in the world after V-J Day, and it is a whole lot different than it was before V-J Day, and the most important people to keep up with that change today are the educators. One other thing that I would like to emphasize about this world of ours is that we have arrived at the point in human history where we can no longer afford the waste and the extravagance of denying people opportunity. You know, democratic government doesn't owe people security. Democracy doesn't owe people a handout. We may give them a handout ; we may present security to them out of our charitable nature, out of our humanitarian im- pulses, but I submit to you that all that democracy owes to people is equality of opportunity. It owes people the right to be a part of things, to be a participant, as I have been saving tonight. I will say that in this competitive age of which we are now a part, we had better make up our minds that we can't have third-class citizens, second- class citizens, fourth-class citizens, and first-class citizens. You just can't have it. On our platform tonight are people from other lands, and they are not all white people. I know that I am talking to a national audience, and I know this is our problem. I am here tonight to say, regardless of where you may be from, that America can no longer endure the hypocrisy of talking about human equality and then denying it. [Applause] I am not even putting it on a high and moral basis. I am just putting it on the basis of 74 American Association of School Administrators being able to live in a competitive world. We need the ability, we need the talent, we need the urge, we need the energy of everybody in America today if we are going to be able even to handle our national debt. If you are going to be able to raise the money that you want for public education, you had better put some people to work today in productive enterprise that you are now keeping literally in the relief lines, in the dependency lines, because you don't like the size of their nose or the color of their skin or the kink of their hair. I have been around enough to know that that happens. This is our problem. We are not going to be very good neighbors running around to our Latin-American friends and to our friends in other parts of the world, a large number of them being colored, and saying, "Oh, how we love you! The Good Neighbor Policy! We are all your buddies." They may say, "How about going home and seeing whether or not you can get along with them first." I think we have got to face that. How are we going to practice love for the Chinese in China when we don't really love them in America? We have Chinese here. We even exclude some of them from citizenship, and yet we are supposed to love them. We are supposed to have good international relations and understanding. How are you going to un- derstand the Chinese in China when you have had a Chinese Exclusion Act in America? That is a pretty basic political problem, I think. I want to know how we are going to love all of our friends in other parts of the world and how we are going to be able to get along with them when we have real problems with some of our own folks right here in our own country. I hear more people worried about the Jews in Palestine. It seems to be the great issue that consumes all the humanitarian impulses of Americans. We are after Mr. Bevin. We don't like Mr. Attlee. But, say, how about the Jews in New York and Minneapolis? Are you interested in them? Are you as concerned about their welfare as you are about whether or not they get a homeland in Palestine, or are you just trying to get rid of them? Anti-Semitism is a basic American problem. What are we doing about it in the American schools? Are all men created equal? Is there a brotherhood of man, or is that just something that we have hanging on the wall for the Fourth of July and we don't believe it? There seems to be a test that we must have, and I think the test is rather universal. "Ye shall know them by their deeds, not by their words." Until America can answer some of these basic problems of intolerance and of exploitation and, let me say, of economic ignorance in its own midst, I don't think we have too much chance of giving world leadership because we are going to be tossed in a turbulent sea of our own discontent and our own confusion. Yes, I am of the belief that before you can love your neigh- bors, you have to know them and you have to respect them, and before there can ever be any brotherhood among mankind, there is going to have to be a little understanding and sound human relations among our kind, among our people in our community. Let me move along to what I consider to be the crisis and what this age of crisis has produced in our school systems. Mr. Benton has spoken to you General Sessions 75 of Dr. Hcnjamin Fine's report. I read that report. In fact, I read it three rimes on the way to this meeting, and each time I became more appalled; each time I became more ill, and each time I almost became more despond- ent. Why do I feel this way? Let me repeat some of the things that were not mentioned. When I read, for example, that the average salary for a classroom teacher in America was $37 a week, I thought to myself, What has hap- pened to American public education? When I found that 53 percent of the cities of America paid more for truck drivers than they did for school- teachers, I began to wonder. What do we really think about public educa- tion, and whose fault is it? When I found that sixty thousand teachers had a high-school education or less and that maybe one of those teachers might teach one of my sons or my daughter, I really became alarmed. I am a selfish person, friends, very selfish. I am interested not only in my own little personal welfare ; I am interested in the welfare of my wife and of my children and of my friends. I submit to you that my children and my friends are not only the products of the kind of home life that they have in their own homes; they are the character product of the community of which they are a part. When I talk about a community I mean the community that Mr. Willkie talked about, the "One World" of which they are a part. I mean the community that we have listed on the American dollar, "E pluribus unum," one out of many, the United States of America. I am convinced that my children cannot be safe in an America where some schools can have six thousand dollars per classroom unit expended upon them, and other schools have one hundred dollars. [Applause] I don't think it is fair. I say it destroys equality and all that it means. I don't believe my family could live in security and in peace in an America in which, when you can't do anything else, when there doesn't seem to be any other job, it is suggested, "Why don't you try a year of teach- ing? Take a teaching job, then go and tend a bar for another year, and then go and work in an office." I don't like that. Maybe that doesn't happen in my city. In the larger cities of America, yes, we may have a higher standard of recruitment, and we may have higher salaries, but I want to remind this audience tonight, I don't care how good a system of schools you have in Houston. Texas, it doesn't make any difiference how good a system of schools we have in Minneapolis, Minnesota, or in New "^'ork City, or in Los Angeles, California, if the rest of the country is deprived, if the rest of the country somehow or other is broken down in its school system, for we will be there sooner or later. We are all affected by our environment. How easy it is to drag the country down! You see, isolationism does not mean only that our frontiers are not on the Rhine. We have a fellow in Chicago who thinks that. He runs a large newspaper there, and he continually spouts off that we should not be worrying about these neighbors of ours across the seas. That is what I call an isolationist, as well as being very impractical and being what I would consider to be basically immoral. 76 American Association of School Administrators But let me say that I know a large number of people who are terribly concerned about the welfare of China, just consumed about how the little Russians are getting along and whether or not the vodka is as good over there as it is here, and other things ; I know many people who are terribly worried about how our friends in Britain are doing, but they have never concerned themselves with how people are getting along on the other side of the tracks in their home town. An isolationist is a person who isn't his brother's keeper, and he doesn't care where his brother is. An isolationist is a person who never concerns himself with anything beyond his own little immediate circle of intimates and friends. I say that American public education can no longer be just a local respon- sibility. Some people are not going to like this, but I for one cannot afford to let j'ou be so wasteful in certain areas of America that you do not educate your children. I have got to be concerned about the safety of my state and of my city and of my family, and if you are not willing to pay for that education, then I want Uncle Sam to pay for it. I believe in federal aid to education, and lots of it. [Applause] I don't know whether or not the federal government will manage it. It wouldn't be any worse to have the federal government sticking its nose into the board of education than to have the real estate board or the property owners association or somebody else. [Laughter] Let's not go around trying to tell each other fibs, because we know that some of these things happen. There are alwaj^s power groups that want to run things. Sometimes it is a union, sometimes it is just big business, but there is always somebody who is willing to take over for you when you don't want to take over, you know. The government of the United States still belongs to the people of the United States, and it is just about as good and as bad as we are — just about as alive as we are. I ask each and every one of you to identify public education not as a sys- tem, not as a great institution, but to identify it with your life, with your children, with your family, and to sell it on that basis, to go right on out and sell it on the basis of family life. I find, for example, that in America there is a need for repair and reno- vation and new construction of schools totaling five billion dollars, and that seems to be a minimum estimate. I hear people say, "Well, of course that is public works, you know, Mr. Humphrey," and you know what the classical theory of economics is. We should have public works when we have a depression. In other words, let's not be worried about whether or not children are educated, but let's adhere to economic principles for a while even if it kills people, even if it means that we have illiteracy and ignorance in the country. Let's not build high schools when we can be building saloons and night clubs, you know. It wouldn't be a good idea for America. That is what some people are saying, because they say that public educational establishments are public works and we should hold off on that until we have unemployment. There are some people who enjoy the darnedest things! I have even heard people say, "Let's not be alarmed about this teachers' General Sessions 77 salary business, and let's not be alarmed about tbe fact that between now and 1950 we will need five hundred thousand teachers. Let's not be alarmed about that because, you know, things can't no on like this all the time. It is a tijiht labor market now. Pretty soon they will be hunj^ry, and they will come streaming back and looking for a teaching job." Oh, what delightful persons they will be! Won't it be wonderful when we have teachers looking for jobs because they are so broke they can't do anything but teach? We have relied on that all too long, my good friends. Let's wake up to some realities, friends. Hig business is here to sta\'. Big and expensive government is here to stay, and if you people haven't enough sense to know that big education is here to stay and should be here to stay, then you had better start waking up right now. It is going to cost money, too. There are no free rides left in America. That is all over. It is about time we started telling the American citizen body that if it costs more to buy baby shoes, if it costs more to heat the home, if it costs more to buy a new automobile for the family, if it costs more to buy a new set of encyclopedias for your home, if it costs more when you have a maid come in, it costs more to run schools, too. It is just that simple. We have some people in America today who seem to think that everything else can go up in price, but government costs must come down. I don't know where they get their economics, but they seem to enjoy it anvhow, and they have some of you people believing it. Yes, they have some people believing it. Let me tell you folks something. Do > ou know what is happening to the American school administrator? ^'ou are waiting for the teachers to make you stand up and be respectable and humanitarian. That is right. You are waiting for teachers who are getting so sick and tired of taking care of other people's little bundles from heaven at half price that sooner or later the\ will climb down your throats and force you to recognize the fact that you have got to start paying them something. That is not good business for you, either. I should like to remind every schoolboard member and every admin- istrator here tonight that you have a responsibility not only to your profes- sion; you have a responsibility not only to Uun & Hradstrcet and double entry bookkeeping, whatever that may be, but you have a responsibility to the people of America. You have a responsibility more than any congress- man or any senator, because all they are worrying about is widows and orphans, and you are worried about all people. What is that responsibility? It is the responsibility of leadership, the responsibility of looking at the facts, of finding out what are the facts and stating them positively to the American people. I am happy to say that in our city of Alinneapolis we have people in the school system, a superin- tendent and some people on the schoolboard, and we have some people in labor and some people in business, who are willing to go on out and say it. We are not pulling any punches in Minneapolis. W^e tell them it is going to cost them two million dollars more next year just to keep the schools open. We are not even saying that they are going to be better. We aie just going to keep them open. I am here tonight to tell you that if you tell the people 78 American Association of School Administrators that you are going to close them up if they don't pay the two million dollars, there will be enough mothers get after enough fathers and taxpayers that the children will be taken out of the home for the nine months of the year. So, they will remain open. Don't worry about that. Half of the summer is spent planning how you are going to use your life in the winter when Susie and Johnnie go back to school. No, I am not advocating that teachers go out on strike, but I am advo- cating that they not be saps enough to work for nothing the rest of their lives. If they have to become sometimes a little bit violent, let me say, and a little bit upset and make some people come to their senses, it is good for America, because Americans today, for the first time that I can remember and for the first time that you can remember, are beginning to take an in- terest in education ; and the reason that they are beginning to take an interest in education is that some people have said, "I am darned tired of educating your children while you get rich and I get poor." That is exactly what is happening. There is one thing that is sure, that the production program in America hasn't slowed down all over, folks. We have had some strikes and we have had some labor-management disputes, but I would like to remind my as- sembled friends here tonight that production has been doing pretty well in the field of humanity, and in 1950 you are going to have two million more of these little fellows, two million more opportunities for greatness, two million more people coming, looking for help and looking for guidance. You are going to have two million more young Americans that are going to want to have gymnasiums, that are going to want to have good teaching and good teachers, and the mothers of some of these children are going to want to have child care centers under the control of a board of education. In 1950 Americans are going to expect more from public education. Even if you don't ask them for more to run it with, they are going to expect more from you, and make up your mind to that right now. An adult's interest in a public school is proportionate to the number of children he has in it. I can tell you that the young men of my generation, the young fellows I know, are going to be good PTA members; they are going to be interested in public schools when that little two-year-old of theirs today is a six-year-old just a few years from now. They are going to start raising Cain with you folks unless you have things in shape, and they won't be easy to deal with either, because many of these fellows have raised Cain with tougher people than are in this audience. You see, some of these men were away from these children a long time, and they are very much inter- ested in their welfare. You would be surprised, there is a great deal of maturity in American youth today. They are going to expect teachers to be- come citizens, and not just teachers. They are going to expect American school administrators to be more than just superintendents and adminis- trators. They are going to expect you to be community leaders. There isn't any reason at all that you should not broaden your perspective and that you should not broaden your experience by being a participant in all ele- ments of the community. General Sessions 79 Yes, I see no reason that you should not become active in political parties. I don't know why you have to be politically sterilized just because you be- come a schoolteacher, and since all of you seem to know that politics is so rotten and dirty, why don't you j^et in and clean it up? There's lots of room. May I go just a little further and say that America is looking to public education for help. Americans have been told repeatedly that the strength of democracy lies in educated people. Americans elected Woodrow Wilson president of the United States because he had the courage to say that America is not as rich as the money in its banks, America is not as rich as its factories, its farms, and its forests. America is as rich as its people — its people, educated, hcalthw and content. That helped make Woodrow Wilson president of the United States. Franklin Roosevelt became presi- dent of the United States because he had the courage to say that all we have to fear is fear itself, and the people rallied from their repression and from their low morale and became men and women again, with strength and with courage. Those are the people who are depending on you, the school administrators and the educators of America, and I paraphrase it to you and say that all you have to fear is fear itself. You are not going to be fired because you become alive. You are not going to be dismissed from your jobs as school- teachers because you talk about controversial issues. Everything is contro- versial, or it is not worth talking about. If you are going to keep neutrality in the schoolroom to the point that you dismiss controversy, then what are you teaching? The only thing you can be doing is telling fairy stories. Those are supposed to be rather neutral, I understand. The American public is a fighting public. The American public is a vigorous public. The American public loves everything that loves it, and when the schools and the schoolteachers and the school administrators really start to love the people and start to take them into their confidence, the people will take care of you and take you into their confidence. Make your schools family institutions, not just institutions for teachers, janitors, librarians, and the switchboard operator. Open up the gates; swing wide the portals. Invite in pa and ma and aunt and uncle, and get the whole neighborhood to come in. Make community centers out of them. Experiment, if you please, with the people's property. The people are happy to let you. They have never told you that you couldn't keep the school open after 4:00. That is some rule that somebody else set. They are just as willing to come to the school and play as they are to send their children to the school so that the children can study. We found that out in Milwaukee in two instances. Open wide the doors, swing wide the portals, and the people will come in. Where the people work and where the people play, where the family plays together and where the family can be together, is where their heart is. It is written somewhere in the good book that a little child shall lead them. I remind you that the children of America can lead the parents into the school, if you want them to, and once you get the parents into the school with your children, your problems will be over, because when parents and children find out together that it is essential that wc have \ocational guid- The Mo)i(lay Evening General Session attracted an audience of seven thousand ance, that we have counseling, that we have medical service, that we have visiting teachers — ^when they find out that these things are no longer frills in education but are fundamentals, you won't need to be worrying about your budget. The American people can pay and will pay for anything they like and they want. There has never been a time in the history of this nation that we could not afford what we really wanted. The trouble is that you have not, as educators and as administrators, sold the American people on the real worthwhileness and the essentiality of education. I challenge you to be salesmen, to get on the march, not only to say, "Awake, America," but to run in to the schoolboard some day and say, "Boo ! Wake up you members, and let's do something about the problems of this school." And you schoolboard members, how about you getting out and talking to your respective groups about the problems of your schools? The American people respond when they are asked. The American people always do the right thing when they have the issue laid clearly before them. I have been trying to talk straight to you tonight. I don't know whether it has been as meaningful to you as it is to me, but I can tell you that it comes not from the heart of a man in public office, but from a man who is deeply concerned about the future of free institutions in America. I am convinced that if every young American in every part of America can have a beautiful and a wonderful experience of democratic citizenship in the public schools of America, if the public schools of America, the people's schools, can be the finest expression of democracy in all of its meaning and all of its ramifications, you will never need to worry about any "ism" over- coming this nation. Give young Americans twelve or thirteen or fifteen years uf the finest that America can give them in school, and you cannot even begin to appreciate the tremendous energy and power that is latent in this great country. This is our job. Let's march out and get busy at it. [80] ^&. FIFTH GENERAL SESSION Tuesday Morning, March 4, 1947 FIVE TALENTS HAROLD F. CLARK, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBLA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK ipRESiDENT Hill: Our first speaker this morning, I think, is quite well -'^ known to most of you and needs no extensive introduction. He has been well known both at home and abroad throughout the entire world for his challenging analysis of education, education's virtues and faults. I some- times think he might have concentrated just a little hit on its faults, for we need some concentration there. He is eminently qualified to receive your attention and interest in his address this morning. During the last few years he has become especially well known as a consultant to the Sloan Foundation of New York City. I think that Foundation, through him and the people who have worked in three states, has perhaps done one of the most inter- esting bits of educational analysis and experiment in the entire country, or in the world, for that matter. He is famous also for being a member of the Yearbook Commission of this year. It is a pleasure and an honor to present Dr. Harold F. Clark. His subject is "Five Talents." Dr. Clark. Dr. Clark: Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen: "And unto one he gave five talents; to another, two; and to another, one." Today, we, as edu- cators, have been given five talents, and we have refused to use them, and when the accounting comes we may he cast into outer darkness. Education has been given five talents, and we have buried them. [81 ] 82 American Association of School Administrators In the course of man's long history on earth, he has tried almost every means to deal with his problems. For ages he tried magic. Someone would get sick. The medicine man would cite his magic numbers, wave his wand, and drive the devils away. Superstitions of every conceivable variety were practiced. Witches on broomsticks brought trouble. They were lucky or unlucky, depending upon the age and the country. You wanted to solve a problem, and you called upon the witch to help you. These were not dependable ways of getting information or of solving problems. Man's slow and tortuous climb up the ladder of civilization has been the effort to find better means of improving his condition. We are living through the first faint dawn in the period when man, by taking thought can add a cubit to his moral stature and to his command of the world. For the past few centuries, education has been tried haltingly, a little here and less there, as a means of solving man's problems. Our ancestors only a few generations ago conceived of education as the means of passing on the skills of reading and writing and a few elementary facts regarding the world around us. Today, a few courageous souls are systematically pointing out how education can enable man to get better command of his universe. The people of the United States, however, do not as yet believe very strongly in the power of education. This is shown clearly by what they have allowed to happen to teachers* salaries in the last ten years. Ten years ago teachers' salaries were on a level high enough that teachers were drawn from the upper third of the population. In the course of these ten years teachers' salaries have dropped in relation to other occupations so greatly that, if we are not careful, we will be getting our teachers from the bottom half of the population. Teachers' salaries now are in the bottom half of all salaries and incomes in the United States. During the course of these ten years the cost of living has increased 54 percent. Teachers' salaries have increased 44 percent. We are actually paying teachers less than we were ten years ago. In the meantime, the national income has increased from seventy billion dollars to one hundred seventy billion dollars. The only reason this decline in teachers' salaries could have taken place is the fact that we, as educators, have not told the American people how they could use their most precious possession. They have not supported ade- quately this most powerful agency for social and economic progress, and we have been the cause. If we had carefully and systematically pointed out the power of education and what it could do for the people in solving their own problems, they would never have allowed the decline in school support. I would like to call to your attention some of the evidence showing the power of education as a method of making the world a richer, a happier, and a better place to live. The following is a sample of the worldwide evi- dence that is available. In a very few minutes I want to take you on a trip around the world. In the course of the last twenty years I have had the good fortune to work in some fifty-eight countries of the world, including all of any importance. We have been looking for what it was that determined the level of living of General Sessions 83 the mass of people in those countries. I think we found the answer, and I want to present it to you extremely briefly this morninjr. I think the simplest way to do that is to take you to a sample of those countries. I would like you to j^o with me first to a country in South America, the country- that I would rate as the richest in all the world in its physical resources. It is a country that has tens of millions of acres of land as good as the finest Iowa or Mississippi delta land. It has enormous reserves of timber. It has, in relation to its size, perhaps the largest reserves of oil in the world. It has an enormous ran{2;e of mineral resources. Through large sections of that country it has a climate 365 days of the year about like the finest day that you have ever known at this latitude in May or June. I know a city in that country that today has a retail rate of electric power as low as the TVA ever hopes to have wholesale at the switchboard after the dams are amor- tized. That is cheap power. That country has everything, seemingly. It has everything except one. It has one of the most inadequate school systems in the world. That school system is not capable of giving the people of that country the skills and the opportunity to use those resources. The net result is one of the low standards of living of the world. I could take you along the Magdalena River today and show you villages practically on the verge of starvation in one of the richest valleys in the entire world. As contrasted with that, I would like to take you to a little country in the northwestern corner of Europe that is almost without resources. It is really a sand dune sticking out into the North Sea. One hundred years ago the soil was almost exhausted. For a thousand years it had been farmed in small grain, and it had been literally burned to pieces. There are no natural sources of power in that country. The soil is very poor. There is almost no farming. There are practically no mineral resources of any kind. There are no natural sources of power in the country at all. You would say it was a country without resources, and a hundred years ago it was, but in two short generations the school people of that country have created the most skilled population on earth in regard to one part of their resources. Even that limited type of education, inadequate as it is, as poorly as it is designed in terms of what we know, is still good enough to pull that country from one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the highest incomes in the entire world. Education did the job. In the discussion of the yearbook yesterday afternoon a very distin- guished businessman raised the question whether education was the causal factor in bringing about these changes, and I want to try to deal as briefly as I can with other things that might have caused the change and show you that all other changes can be accounted for and that education was the factor that really made the difference. I would like to take you to two other countries. One is Mexico, a semi- tropical country with enormous resources. Somebody will say it is the climate, that there was a difference in the climate between Colombia and Denmark and that that is the reason for the change. All right. I will give you two semitropical countries of approximately the same resources. Mexico has large resources, power, oil, timber, minerals, and what-have-you, but 84 American Association of School Administrators has not yet built an educational system that is capable of using those re- sources in the interest of the mass of the people. The net result, as many of you know, is a low standard of living. Halfway around the world there is another semitropical country, in almost exactly the same latitude but with not quite so adequate resources, not as many minerals, not as good timber, not as good climate, but it has built the second best educational system in the world as far as one segment of its population is concerned. That school system, inadequate as it is, has still enabled that country, by the use of the resources that it has, to pass every country in Europe, to pass the United States, and it now stands as having the highest income In the entire world. Certainly climate is no barrier to a high income if your schools will work at the problems that are important to the people of that particular society. I would like to compare very briefly Brazil and the United States, both countries of enormous resources. Brazil has great resources in minerals, land, forests, almost everything, except that it has not yet got around to building an adequate school system that will enable the people to use the resources that they have. In the United States, in spots here and there on a few items, we have built a passable school system, nothing like as good as it ought to be, and as yet dealing only with a very few parts of the total environment. I should like to take you to another country in South America, Chile, a country of very substantial resources, wide reserves of minerals, good for- ests, good sources of power, a magnificent climate, one of the finest on earth, with an opportunity to build a great civilization and an extremely high level of living. It has but a very limited educational system. A small and limited group at the top are extremely highly cultivated and extremely competent people, but they have not yet designed an educational system in terms of all the people and, for that matter, no other country in the world has, either. I should like to take you back to the northwestern corner of Europe to another country that is almost without resources, with rocky, barren land. Practically all the land in the country is made-land, land that has been literally carried in. It has an extremely short growing season, very limited power, limited forests ; but in terms of those poor resources, it has one of the better educational systems of the world, which has been good enough to build one of the high incomes not only of Europe, but of the entire world. I shall comment on only two more countries, Rumania and Switzerland. They are in almost exactly the same latitude, and the basic climate is very much the same. So far as we know, the mixture of races has gone on so long in both countries that for practical purposes we will have to conclude that the populations are essentially of the same ability. Rumania has more re- sources than any other country in Europe. It has the finest agricultural land. It has the only real reserves of oil. It has great reserves of timber. It has the best location for transportation, probably. Seemingly, it has everything, except that it has the most unbalanced educational system I know in the world. It probably trains fewer people in relation to the number it ought General Sessions 85 to train than almost any other country in the ^ntire world. The net result is that the people arc not capable of usinf^; their resources, and that means a low income. Switzerland, on the other hand, as you all know, is very poorly placed as far as natural resources are concerned. The country practically stands on end or on its side. It has almost no agricultural land in the normal use of that word. It is almost devoid of mineral resources. It is under snow a very lar<2;e part of the year and has a very inadequate climate for firowinf?. It seems to have all the disadvantages that you could imagine, but as compared with other countries, it has managed to build an amazingly competent school system ; and of all the cities of the world, I would pick the city of Zurich as the city that has come nearest to training and giving a high level of skill to all of its industrial population. What they have done, inadequate as it is, is still good enough to give them one of the highest standards of living in the world. I think the evidence is more than adequate to demonstrate that climate is not the cause of these differences. Most certainly resources cannot be the cause, because you have countries of high resources and low income; you have countries of low resources and high income. The one thing you will always find wherever you find a high income is a high degree of education, and the one thing and the only thing you always find if the income is low is that you have an inadequate educational system. Perhaps I should say just a word about the claim that education is the cause of these differences, and that is exactly the claim that I am making. By that, of course, I do not mean that education does it alone. That would be a totally unreasonable assumption. It would be just as sensible to say that the sun causes it or that the earth causes it by supporting the people. There are a thousand things that have to be there. I am using education as the cause only in the sense that, everything else being as it is, getting all the help you will get or all the hindrance you will get from other institutions, if you change the education, the income will change. That is the only sense in which I am using it as the cause. I think that is all we have to use it for as far as the American people are concerned. We must get them to see something of the power of education to solve the relatively easy problems of economic welfare and get them to begin to face the problem of designing an educational system to deal with their other problems. It is clear from the evidence I have given that education Is the crucial factor in determining the level of income of the various countries of the world. Any country that ivants high income can get it by improving its educational system, and any country that icants a low income can get it by keeping a poor educational system. I have stayed far away from home most of the time this morning because the temperature would not rise quite so much, I thought. I would much rather have discussed the question in terms of your individual communities, but most of us cannot do that quite so objectively. However, exactly the same thing applies within the sections of our country. There are places in the United States where the income is low. Can the income in these sections 86 American Association of School Administrators be raised ? Can other social, and economic problems of these countries or communities be solved by education? The evidence is not 100 percent, but it all points in the same direction. Is it possible to get any evidence stronger than just personal opinion on this matter? I think the answer is "Yes." A few years ago I was discussing the problem with the head of one of the great foundations in the country. The question was raised during the discussion, "What would happen if the schools in various low-income com- munities in this country would try to improve such matters as food or clothing or housing?" In other words, can the schools improve living condi- tions in American communities? The very method by which education tries to solve problems would indicate that the thing to do is to get some actual evidence. One could guess at the answer to this problem until the end of time, but the guesses might be wrong. Why not try to set up control and experimental communities and try to find out what the results would be. Start the program in one experimental community and compare it with the control community and see what happens. That is exactly what was done. With the financial support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the help of various universities and public schools, such experimental centers were set up. All the evidence from such centers is not yet collected, but on the basis of the evidence that is available it seems reasonable to conclude that if the teachers in the school system want to improve the economic con- ditions in a community, the school can easily do so. Most o^us will accept the evidence that teachers of agriculture can im- prove agriculture in American communities. Most school people would be willing to argue — at least I would — that a teacher of agriculture does not cost the community anything. It costs the community not to have the teacher of agriculture. I think most farming communities in America would be per- fectly willing to say that it would cost them more not to have a teacher of agriculture than to have him. Why haven't we extended the argument? Almost all the housing in America is bad. The most distinguished com- mittee of architects that has ever studied New York City has gone on record in print stating that New York consists of the lower slums of the lower East Side and Harlem and the upper slums of Park Avenue; and the evidence is quite clear because of actual count of the amount of noise, the amount of dirt, the lack of light, and the carbon monoxide fumes, which are the four things on which they measured. The $20,000-a-year apartments on Park Avenue were actually worse than the slum blocks. All of New York City is a slum. The most distinguished group that has ever studied it has said so. Housing in America is bad. We have spent a great deal of money studying the housing of the southern half of the United States. It came from Eng- land, went to Virginia, and moved south. It is bad housing for that part of the world. It is not designed in terms of the climate. But show me a fourth- grade teacher who has tried to do anything about it. We studied every house in one southern city, and every one of them went back to Elizabethan Eng- land in its basic design. I could not find a single teacher, not one, in the General Sessions 87 southern half of the United States who had ever tried to work at the prob- lem of housinjj;. The situation is exactly the same in the state of Vermont as far as clothing is concerned, in terms of the basic design of clothing for that climate. Only a few days ago I drove over to Mount Mansfield, and the temperature was 25 or 30 below zero. The man who took me over said he grew up at the base of Mansfield as a boy, and the boys stopped working when it got 10 below zero. That sounds like a cold temperature to most of us. It is if you are not prepared for it. When we got to Mansfield, we found that the wealthy group who had come from all over the United States, who had come up from Florida, were outside skiing in the climate of 25 below. What was the difference? They knew what to wear, that was all. They didn't find it out from the school, either. We had a community in Vermont where the school superintendent had a little different approach to what the school could do about improving life and living in the community. He had the weird idea of questioning the basic assumption that had existed for three hundred years in New England that when the weather got cold, you piled up the snow and dirt around the house to keep the house warm. He was building two identical schools. He decided to put one of them up on posts and allow the wind to whistle under it. Of course it would be colder. Everybody knew that. But he had finally reached the stage of deciding that the best thing to do was to build one that way. He was going to build two at the same time, building the other one the old way with a solid concrete foundation and dirt up around it. Then he would put thermometers in them and let the thermometers say what the temperatures were, rather than guessing at it. The thermometers said that the school up on the posts was the warmer school. They continued to say it all winter. He didn't believe it, of course, so he finally changed the thermometers from one school to the other, and they reversed. The school up on the posts was still the warmer school, and any third-grade child can tell you why after he is told why. Everybody in New England was wrong on it for three hundred years. The only question I am raising is whether you want to improve condi- tions. I am taking easy illustrations, ones I know a little about and have worked on in the fields of food, housing, and clothing. Why is it that we brought the wrong kind of cattle into the United States and moved them into the southern half of the country, and then assumed that the cattle industry would not thrive there? Why didn't the schools do something about it? Why did we have to wait for the ranchers in Texas finally to decide that you can't bring cattle from 50 degrees north latitude and put them in the southern part of this country and expect them to live? Why didn't the geography teachers tell us that Florida, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi do not have the same climate as the Jersey Isles and Holstein? They didn't. They went on studying geography out of a book, as though it had no rela- tion to the life and living of the community. We have been told that the South is the major economic problem of the 88 American Association of School Administrators country. I am prepared to say that the schools could solve it and solve it very easily and very quickly. I have used illustrations at the lower end of the economic scale. I will give you just one from the hig;her end. These problems of living are just as crucial, just as important, at the upper end of the economic scale and all through the economic scale as they are at the lower end. I was talking to a school superintendent in one of the wealthiest school districts, if not the wealthiest, in the United States, and he told me that as nearly as he could find out, the average girl in his high school had a spending allowance for clothing of about $5000 a year. That creates some problems that are just as bad as trying to dress a family on $25 a year in northern Vermont, which is the average in one of our experimental communities there. This is the kind of problem that arises : Those girls are living at home and have all their expenses paid. They become accustomed to that; then they marry. In this particular community they marry early, too. They marry boys who are making $125 a month. The allowance is stopped, of course, because that is the custom and tradition, and the girl, without any background, without any experience, has to pay the rent, buy the food, pay for the entertainment, and manage to keep a home together on $125 a month, and she can't do it. The divorce rate shows that. Practically every girl winds up in the divorce court. Maybe that is not, a problem of that high school, and maybe it is. What I am trying to say is that in all aspects of American life there are problems that the schools can solve and that the schools have the power to solve, but we as educators are unwilling to build the school system in terms of those problems and capable of solving them. I am going to describe very briefly just one school that I have seen. I have a note here for the description of three, but I am going to have time to give you but one of them. They are from three different countries, one in Mexico, one in China, and one in the United States, where the schools had almost completely rebuilt the major contours of life in those com- munities. I will take the hard one and describe that, the one in China. A few years ago I saw this Chinese village about ten j^ears after a teacher had gone in. I am told by people in position to know the records that, according to all the records, the ways of life in that village had been essentially unchanged for four thousand years. That village was an old and stable culture, not when Columbus discovered America, but when the Romans went into Rome and when Athens and Sparta were first established. The ways of food, the rice culture, had gone on for century after century. The type of housing and everything was set. It had not changed, not for generations or hundreds of 3'ears, but for thousands of years. How would you like to go into that community and try to change and improve the level of living? This teacher had the courage to try it, and I saw the village ten years later. When he started that village was a typical South China village, of General Sessions 89 extremely low income, a rice culture basicalh . with no reasonable prospect of expanding: the cultivation of rice. They had pushed it up the hillsides as far as they could for the wet rice, and the dr\' rice would not bring hif^h enough \ ields. He decided in the school to study the problem of diet and what the\' would have to do to get an adequate diet. Ten \ears later he had solved it. The diet of that village was adequate. He studied in the school the inadequate one-room huts of that village, and reached the conclusion that the housing was inadccjuate. They rebuilt every house in the village, with no outside help, no help from Nanking and no help from Canton. They did it themselves. As many of you ktiow, the curse of the Indian and Chinese village, perhaps as much as or more than anything else, is the mone\lender. Debts go down from father to son and are passed on and on. Ten years before, almost every famil\ was in debt to the mone) lender. When I was there, the debts had been repaid, and the bank in the village, owned by the \illagers themselves, a cooperative bank, had more than $30,000. In addi- tion they had built an industry and paid for it and owned it, and they had enormously expanded the opportunities for working life. The school had done this thing. If I had been picking the most difficult spot on earth to start as a teacher and do anything about improving the village, that is the spot I would have picked. There is another village in Mexico that goes back to preconquest times that was changed in almost equivalent time. Fairly recently I saw a small community in the United States that had gone through almost the same kind of advance and expansion in an even shorter period of time. We are slowly reaching the stage when education must be designed in terms of the purposes we hope to achieve. An old and decrepit design of education has been inherited by the modern world. The yearbook which you are going to hear about in a moment is an efTort to start discussion on some of the changes that will have to be made in the educational system if we are going to design it in terms where there is some rea- sonable chance that schools can deal with the problems of our world. This educational system that we have inherited was developed for about 5 percent of the population and for very limited objectives. Now we must design an education for all the people and for a wide variety of purposes. I want to emphasize that there is as yet no such school in the United States. I have not seen all of them, but I have seen a fair sample of them, and all that I have ever seen is a school designed for 5 percent, forcing ever^'body to go to it. There are a few schools that do a little better than 5 percent, but I am sure that is a generous average. If we want to improve health or working life or the use of leisure or world understanding, we must design an education that has some chance of doing these things. It is possible to get proof that the school system we have designed or are capable of designing can do these things that the public demands. The time should rapidly come when the public may expect to measure in part the efficiency of the school by the improve- ments that the school is able to make in the community. 90 American Association of School Administrators The public is not indefinitely going to be satisfied with paper-and-pencil tests in school as all the result of the school system. That, yes, but that is not enough for the world in which we are living. The citizens should be assisted in stating the things that they want. They should be shown how a school system can be designed to bring about those things. Do we want economic improvement? A school system can be designed to help bring it about. Do we want better housing or food or clothing? A school system can be built that will go far toward solving these problems. Do we want schools that will help in creating better world understanding? Schools can do this. Do we want a community where people know how to live together? Schools have already done a little about this and could easily find out how to do a great deal more. If the community really wants such results, a school system can doubtless be built that will be a major factor in bringing them about. The most profound technological changes are in the process of taking place. The use of atomic power will doubtless be commonplace within a generation. Three-fourths of the world lies unexplored in the oceans about us. The oceans probably contain far greater resources for agriculture than all the land areas put together. Do we want a generation capable of using these opportunities and of living in peace with their fellow men? If we do, a school system should be designed that would have some reasonable chance of making it possible. We have the strongest proof that the level of education and technical competence determines the level of income in the various countries of the world. Conditions even in the poorest sections of our own country could be improved sharply by the proper educational systems. Even in the difficult field of learning to live and work with each other in peace and satisfaction, schools can make great contributions if we build the proper kind of schools. We, as educators, have in our hands perhaps the most powerful agency for community improvement that the world has yet invented. In conclusion, I would like to paraphrase slightly the words of the great poet: Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life . . . Ring in the love of truth and right. Ring in the common love of good . . . Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Education is the five-talent servant of our generation. Let us see that it is used so that the verdict of the future will be, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." I thank vou. General Skssions 91 PRESENTATION OP^ TPiE 1947 YEARBOOK, Schools for a New World CLAUDE V. COURTER, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CINCINNATI, OHIO; CHAIRMAN, 1947 YEARBOOK COMMISSION President Hill: As most of you know, the Association has had year- books for a good many years, and one time some years ago when the suggestion was made that we not have yearbooks, it was voted down almost unanimously. The yearbooks are of tremendous value and stimulation to all of us, and it is a pleasure at this time to present the Chairman of the 1947 Yearbook Commission, who will make the formal presentation of the yearbook, Schools for a NezL> ff^orhl. Dr. Claude V. Courter, Superin- tendent of Schools of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Courter: Mr. President, Honored Guests, Members of our Asso- ciation: In the early spring of 1945 the members of the Yearbook Com- mission were asked by our Executive Committee to prepare a yearbook on the postwar curriculum. Two years ago this seemed to be the proper theme for the yearbook of this Association in 1947. You will remember that at that time all agencies of our society were asking, "How can we best contribute to the successful transition of our economy from war to peace?" It seemed very logical then that the 1947 yearbook of our Association should concern itself with the changes in the curriculum and the new instructional emphases that would best implement the return of our society to the wholesome pursuits of peace. I must emphasize, however, that that was two years ago. I do not have to remind you that between then and now we have lived through the two most eventful years of man's tenancy of this portion of the universe ; nor do I have to remind you how incomparably greater the issues of education in today's world are as compared to what we could have conceived two years ago. The yearbook which your Commission presents today was written during these eventful years. It is not the yearbook it started out to be. Instead, it carries the title Schools for a New JVorld and opens with the statement: "A bomb was dropped: one world was destroyed ; a new world was born. Since this yearbook was started one kind of world has ended, another begun. It is not the physical world that has been destroyed, or that is likely to be destroyed. A world of ideas has been destroyed. One conception of the nature of man in the universe has been replaced by another of far greater power." The viewpoint which follows this statement and constitutes the text of the yearbook is that in this new world the heavy hand of destiny is laid unmistakably upon the schools of the world and the profession of teaching, but especially upon the schools and teachers of America ; that this new world will be the kind of world that the children of today and tomorrow are equipped through education to build and live in ; and that what goes on in the schoolrooms of the world during the next half century will have a 92 American Association of School Administrators profound bearing upon man's final victory, his continued frustration, or his ultimate defeat. With the advent of atomic power, man has now the supreme opportunity to build a far better world than he could possibly have known for many generations still to come. He at last has the resources, he has enough power, he has enough knowledge, he has enough technical competence. He needs only to conquer himself and live cooperatively with his fellows. H he plans now creatively and acts cooperatively, there need not much longer be any place on earth where members of the human race cannot have enough to eat, habitable dwellings in which to live, and sufficient clothing to keep them warm, and where they cannot know happiness and contentment in full living. There is, of course, also the stark possibility of man's moral incapacity to use creatively the inexhaustible power now available to him. With it, should he choose the wrong pathway into the future, he can destroy all that he has been building since before the dawn of history. That he may have the capacity to discern eternal values, to make the right choices of the alternatives from which he must choose, to use the power that is available to him creatively, to get along with all of his fellow men of whatever race, color, or creed — this is the challenge that the age of atomic power lays down to those who plan and administer public education. So much for the viewpoint from which this book is written. For just two or three moments, a few specific viewpoints: The problem of our society. This book states that the problem of our society is fundamentally the problem of "translating the basic ideals of our culture into the human relationships they presuppose ;. of transferring these ideals into effective social action at the local, national, and world levels. Our problem is not new. It seems to be new because the need is greater, the crisis urgent ; because the society is more complex, the setting worldwide. The barriers, however, are the same ; they but reach farther. We deal with the same enemies within our gates which have always beset us. They are ignorance, selfish individualism, privilege, and their offspring — prejudice, intolerance, and irresponsibility — all breeders of the suspicion, distrust, and insincerity which hold so much of our society and of the world in grasp, and which limit freedom and destroy it." This book states that : "We shall do well to remind ourselves frequently of the nature of our world responsibility — that the heart of the Western culture and the seat of its greatest power is now the North American hemisphere. Here will be determined in the next few decades the real strength of the great American idea, the strength of the economy which gives it expression, and the strength of its influence on the rest of the world. . . ." "The former world was a compromise between the ideals of the Western culture and an insatiable lust for power and material goods. ... It was a world kept in delicate and precarious balance by power politics and the art of the diplomat. This world is ended. To the extent the new world is patterned on the old, the end of Western civilization draws nearer. Genejlm. Sessions 93 "It is the function of I'ducation to help build a new world in which men and nations niav live totj;etlu*r in justice and security, in unitv and peace. Our ideals have been distilled from the dreams of prophets and sa^es, and the hijzhest aspirations of men through the aties. It is now the function of education to help give them full expression. It is the great function of the schools of America tn establish xvitJi all f^itpils in the transinissioti of the culture the moral and spiritual values and the fundamental understandinas essential to the imprm-eme/if of the culture, and necessary for the responsible living together of free men in a free society." It has been said that often the spirit of great events strides on before and that tomorrow already walks today. The spirit of great events is knock- ing today upon the doors of the schoolrooms of the world, especially the schoolrooms of America. With this consciousness, and writing with the feeling that tomorrow looked over their shoulders, the members of this commission have attempted to state in this yearbook what is required of America's schools in the years iminediately ahead. Ihey have written with the conviction that the present facilities and resources of our schools, limited though they are in terms of the needs to be served, will permit great advances to be made in our day in preparing future citizens to live in harmony with the requirements of this new age. They have attempted to point out what some of these recjuirements are and to suggest ways in which the schools can contribute to their establish- ment in our society. They state that if the schools of America perform their full function, they are to furnish the understandings, the competence, and the will for greatly improved huinan relationships in our own culture, for more understanding and intelligent relationships with the rest of the world, and for the creative transformation of atomic power into better living. They have indicated their faith that America's schools can and will rise to the emergency which confronts them. In these demanding years which are now upon us, public education in our society must resolve its confusion, settle its controversies, and un- erringly set its course. Our schools may know now with certainty that their critical revaluation is in the near oflRng, that new demands soon will be made of them, and that a new and more complete dependence will be placed upon them. In recognition of these impending demands, \our commission has at- tempted in this yearbook to do five things: * 1. VVe have attempted to state tlie basic problems and issues which face our society and which we must cope with in the age in which we now find ourselves. 2. We have attempted to indicate the potentiality of public education as a chief instrumentality in the successful resolving of these issues. 3. ^^'e have attempted to nive direction to curriculum makers in five ways: first, by suggesting the central purpose and functions of jniblic education in this new- age; second, by describing the nature of the pupil personnel to be guided and prepared; third, by pointing out the vital areas of education wliiili must be further developed; fourth, by discussing the psychological considerations and the principles (if social organization and action essential to economy of effort and fruitful pro- cedure; and. fifth, by reporting unicpie developments illustrative of procedures which hold promise. 94 American Association of School Administrators 4. We have attempted to show public education in action in desirable directions in small, medium-sized, and large communities and on the state level. 5. We have attempted to suggest criteria for the evaluation of the program of education in any community. Such is the nature, the purpose, and the scope of the 1947 Yearbook. Mr. President, on behalf of the members of this commission, it is now my great pleasure to present to you and the members of this Association this 1947 Yearbook. Every member of this commission has considered it a privilejje to serve our Association in this way. In preparing this yearbook we have been very conscious of the responsibility which we have attempted to discharge. Considering the importance of education in today's world, we present this evidence of our labor with a sense of deep humility. We can only hope that as we have probed among the issues of our society and our schools at this time and have suggested ways in which the schools may help to solve these issues, we may have turned up here and there something sufficient to repay the reader of this book for the time that he spends with it. Be that as it may, we now add this book to the long line of its dis- tinguished predecessors, which is company we are very proud to have it keep. President Hill: Thank you. Dr. Courter. I am sure any of you who have worked on a yearbook commission appreciate the difficulties and the long hours of work and the time-consuming nature of this task, and I am sure all of us appreciate the very fruitful labors of this very successful Yearbook Commission. THE ASSOCIATION PLANS FOR THE FUTURE Brief Statement on the Planning Committee HENRY H. hill, PRESIDENT, GEORGE PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE; PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS What I have to say is not to be regarded as a formal President's address. I have not thought it wise to attempt anything of that kind. We have brought speakers who have called to your attention the pressing problems of the day. What I have to say is more or less in the nature of background for the presentation of the work of the Planning Committee. Precisely when one generation of school administration is over and another begins may not be determined exactly, but the two world wars within the lifetime of most of us here will serve as convenient division points. Modern school administration was developing prior to World War I, but it was during the so-called "Glorious Twenties" that superintending schools became in every way a big business. It was the decade of quantity. The Thirties, by contrast, was the decade of scarcity and retrenchment. The Forties so far have been dominated by the second world war. What the Fifties will be in school administration is not yet clear, but it seems safe enough to forecast a new and different generation of school administration and school administrators. I hope it can be a decade of General Sessions 95 quality. I expect to see better salaries for teachers. The flight from teaching will be checked or substantially stopped during 1947. Perhaps new phenom- ena such as strikes by teachers, direct collective bargaining between teachers and boards, and other recent aberrations from the normal will be less evident. Sympathetic as I must always be with teachers and their problems, I still hope we may ultimately be a real profession. One thing is certain. The supply of children will be ample, for per- centagewise and in numbers the babies have been increasing since before the war. The greatest number of babies ever born in the United States in one year up to that time appeared in 1944, again in 1945 a bumper crop break- ing all records, probably in 1946, preliminary figures indicating so, "and apparently 1947 will be the biggest year of all. Actually, it is getting both popular and stylish to have babies, not just one, but two or three. The greatest increase in enrolments will be in grades thirteen and four- teen, ordinarily known as the junior-college years. I wish I felt as certain about some other things as I do about that. I don't see any escape from that, whether it be viewed with alarm or pointed to with pride. Time forbids comment as to the many implications of this and other trends which demand abler and wiser school administrators in the future. No single president of the AASA can do much for our profession of school administrators, and yet he would do what he can. It seems to me that the end of the war, the holding of our first national convention since five tumultuous years ago in San Francisco — five pretty unusual years, I think you will agree — and the emergence of new and difficult problems, all indicate an effort on our part to appraise our Association — its organiza- tion, policies, and practices — and to do this promptly. Wisely, I think, our constitution can be modified only by two successive national conventions. This fact and the necessity for meeting new needs with dispatch caused me, with the approval of the Executive Committee, to appoint a Planning Committee early last summer. Neither President nor Executive Committee had any prefabricated ideas of change. It seemed to me that the Committee might consider first the ideals and purposes which should guide us in the next generation. Then, and only then, should details of increased dues, time and place of meetings, and other matters be properly considered, just as in theory at least — and I wish in practice — the needs of the children might be written out specifi- cally and then the money found to answer those needs. Presumably we might have appointed members only or chiefly from college faculties, or from the largest cities, or, if anyone knew who they were, the most brilliant members of our organization. It seemed wiser to appoint a group representative of all geographical areas and all sizes of school districts, the primary purpose being to get men who would meet and work and who in spirit represented our best. Neither reactionarv nor radical. I think this Committee represents that sane and progressive purpose which has always seemed the hope of good public schools in America. I want to close this personal word to you with my pledge of continued dedication to the profession of school administration. In good times or bad, 96 American Association of School Administrators through expansion or depression, you and I may cast our influence and example in favor of better schools, better school administration, and better children. Rack in the 1930's the school superintendency was characterized in a leading article in the American Mercury as "the worst job in America." Sometime, in some of your high or low moments, as the case may be, you might take that article out and read it. It is still quite an intriguing article to me. Without agreeing wholly, I can testify after twenty-six years of studying, teaching, or practicing school administration that it isn't any moonlight sonata, but, on the other hand, what is? I am sure you also join me in a word of tribute to those active superin- tendents on the job who since 1942 have passed on to the schoolrooms of another world. Requiescant in pace. Many of these were in their forties and fifties, men who refused to quit their arduous duties even when doctors and friends warned them of personal hazard. Surely we might be senti- mental long enough to hope that St. Peter will confer a ribbon of merit on these civilian war casualties, even as their sons received high distinction on the field of battle. But it takes more than personal heroism to lead the thirty million children in our American schools. It takes skill, vision, and know-how. I call on the colleges and graduate schools of the nation to build greater centers where persons with ability may learn how to lead, not just the know-how, and may develop the ardor and zeal for service which is essential. A great generation of professors of school administration is rapidly passing oiif the active stage. I shall not call their names, but you can look in any section of the country and find that this is true. An even greater number is needed in their places. In conclusion, education cannot alone solve domestic or international problems, but without education the atomic age Is hopeless. Surely that minority (of businessmen) who think only of profits can see It must be a far better education than that of the past. How can you solve more difficult problems without having better education ? It Is beyond me how anybody can logically assume anything else. May the AASA swear an educator's oath that so far as In us lies, we shall see that the people understand the issues facing education today. May the new generation of school admin- istrators be the best In America's history. [Applause.] I think very highly of the members of the Planning Committee. They were "worked over" quite thoroughly. A host of names was presented to the Executive Committee. Those chosen represent our best attempt to get persons with the different points of view of the various sections of the country'. We have had a splendid chairman, who with all the pressures of operating the schools of Minneapolis — where the problems haven't been much smoother than they have been out In Podunk most of the time — without stint has devoted all the time necessary to the work of this com- mittee. I am happy at this time to present the chairman of the Planning Committee, who will make the report — Willard E. Goslin, Superintendent of Schools of Minneapolis, Minnesota. General Sessions 97 PRESENTATION OF THE REPORT OF THE PLANNING COMMITTEE ' WILLARD E. GOSLIN, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA; CHAIRMAN, PLANNING COMMITTEE Mr. Goslin: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Planning Committee, Members of the "^'earbook Commission, Ladies, and Gentlemen: \Vhcn President Hill was detailing the errors which he niifzht have made in naminji; this Committee, he indicated that he might have named a com- mittee from the universities or from the large cities or the most brilliant members of the Association, and one of the members of the Committee said in an undertone, "Well, the Lord knows he didn't make that mistake in this case." We are not here to argue vigorously for your support of our Report. Rather, we are here to try to make certain that you understand what we have done, how we have done it, and why we are presenting what we suggest here this morning. As >our president has indicated, this Committee was appointed early last summer. We spent two days in St. Louis in the middle of August and sketched the broad framework of what seemed to us to be the possibilities of our committee and its report. We followed that with correspondence and exchange of ideas and much sampling with our own associates in the various parts of the nation. Then we met for three days in Chicago in early December, the third day of the meeting being in conjunction with the Executive Committee. We have had the benefit of passing on to the Ad- visory Council of this organization our tentati\e suggestions and have received their suggestions and criticisms in return. A number of the members of our Committee have met with members of this organization in their particular states or sections of the nation, have discussed our tentative proposals, and have secured the benefit of their reactions and suggestions. We finally put our best judgment of the moment together following the meeting with the Executive Committee in Chicago, and through the office of Worth McClure in Washington the Report in tentative form was circulated to each member of the organization in The School Adniinistrator for January. The program of this Atlantic City convention carried the announcement of an open hearing by the members of the Committee on this Report at 1 1 :00 yesterday morning. AV'e had thought maybe we would ojitnumber the individuals who would come to the hearing, but wc were particularly pleased to have a full room. We had a very profitable hour or hour and a half on this report and related matters. We have had the benefit of many suggestions li\ mail and from time to time have been able to incorporate in the final report some of the sug- gestions which ha\e come to »is. AVe were able a> late as \esterdav noon '.See "Brief Statcmrnt on Ihr I'lunnine Ciiinniillff" li\- rrcsidrnl Henry 11. Hill I'.isr ''4. .Sec al.-o "Report of the IMannins Coniinitlce" Taue 220. 98 American Association of School Administrators to put into the Report our judgment as to the merit of two or three of the suggestions which were made at the open hearing yesterday morning. It is not my purpose now to read you the Report, but I would like to give you certain insights into it and tell you what we understand to be the next steps if the organization wishes to take them today and tomorrow and at the annual meeting next year. Section I — The Platform. In the first place, the Report is divided into four parts. (See page 220.) The first section of the Report picks up the idea which Henry Hill has indicated to you and which he outlined in splendid fashion to us in the first meeting of our Committee. He believed it would be helpful for this organization in facing the future if we could through this Committee and the cooperation of the membership of the organization develop and establish something that we might call a plat- form for the American Association of School Administrators. We went to work on the idea with some humility, but with considerable enthusiasm because we believed that in facing the problems of the years that lie ahead, it would be a real asset to us as school administrators, and more particu- larly an asset to the welfare of public education in this country, if we could establish a kind of bench mark, a kind of point of reference, a springboard, if you please, at this particular point from which we might move into a solution of our problems. Therefore, we tried to put down in as simple but, we hope, vigorous and effective prose as we were able to develop, a statement of our beliefs as American citizens and as school administrators, and then finally we tried to indicate the specific things which we expect to work for in order to implement these beliefs as citizens and as administrators. I wish to give 3'ou the benefit of the doubt and assume that you can read, and I would also like to avoid revealing how poorly I read. Consequently, I am not going through this Report line by line, I have indicated already that it was mailed to each member of this Association in The School Administrator for January. You have had a copy on your desk. In addition, it was carried in complete detail in yesterday's copy of the Gist. Beyond that, when you vote tomorrow your ballot will carry in complete detail the first three sections of this Report, the three sections which are sus- ceptible to vote by the members of this organization at this particular convention. They are: Section I, The Platform; Section II, Additional Services; and Section III, General Recommendations. When you get your ballot tomorrow, it will have at the top of each section an opportunity for you to vote "Yes" or "No" for that section. In addition, it will furnish you an opportunity to vote "Yes" or "No" for each item within the section. That process will be repeated throughout the ballot. We are anxious to have this program accepted or rejected in terms of the careful scrutiny of the members of this organization. Section II — Additional Services. We were not long into our work, however, in evaluating the background of this organization and in trying to evaluate its future until we began to run into other problems over and beyond the development of a statement which might be called a platform. General Sessions 99 Therefore, we have developed in this Report three other sections. Section II deals with additional services. It takes the form of recommendations from the Planning' Committee to the American Association and to its officers and Executive Committee. We are perfectly aware that there are many additional services which need to be rendered to American education and to educational adminis- trators at the present time. We could have filled a page with thoroughly worthwhile suggestions. We tried to make a careful analysis, however, of the human and financial resources of this organization at the present time. We came to the inescapable conclusion that on the basis of the present resources, financial and human, we will do exceedingly well if we are able to maintain the present flow of activities of the organization unless we step up those resources. The three major activities which the Association has carried on thus far have to do with the great conventions, such as this, the publication of the series of yearbooks, and the development of the research phase of the organization, plus the innumerable services which have been rendered to us as individuals and to our school districts. We believe, however, that American education is confronted with certain problems at the present time which can be solved or partially solved by moving ahead with the great power behind this organization. Therefore, we have tried to outline three areas of additional services and have recommended that the organization move into them immediately. We believe that potentially the members of the American Association of School Administrators represent the most powerful force for good behind the improvement of public education which can be identified through any single organization in America. I do not need to remind you that, as individual superintendents of schools, we retain and hold and develop leadership in our individual communities. We have partially harnessed that power in the development of this organization over a period of years. It is the hope of your Planning Committee, I think shared by the members of your Executive Committee and the officers of the Association, that we may take practical, specific organizational steps which will harness the entire power behind the possibilities of this organization in order that our weight may be more and more felt in cooperation with the over-all forces of education in this country as represented through our parent organization and the related lay and professional groups interested in the welfare of education. In order to do that, we believe that it will be necessary to develop working relationships between local, state, and national levels as represented in school administration through the members of this organiza- tion and the organization itself. Therefore, we are recommending, under "Additional Services," "The extension of the Association's services and activities through the establish- ment of working relationships with local and state organizations." I think I am representing the viewpoint of the members of the Com- mittee when I say that we think that for the long pull this probably represents the most important single recommendation which we are making. 100 American Association of School Administrators In order to give you some insight into our thinking, I would like to make this as tangible as possible. We have tried to avoid being specific in terms of machinery, believing that that sort of thing ought to be developed by the Executive Committee and the officers of the organization under our guid- ance as members from time to time, but these are the kinds of things which we have in mind. It is our belief that more and more important decisions affecting educa- tion all over America will be made at the national level. In order that we, as individual superintendents of schools working in our own particular communities throughout America, may have an opportunity to influence those decisions and guard and guide and direct them, we need a flow of communication through properly established, strong channels with our own fellow members in educational administration in this country, and we are suggesting these kinds of things to the Executive Committee : First, that enough staff be added to this organization to maintain work- ing relationships between the national organization and the local com- munity and regional organizations of school administrators in America. We envision the strengthening and extension of those state and local organizations through the work that can be given and the help which can be given from the national organization working down through these repre- sentatives. We envision such things as this over a period of time : the bringing together of the presidents and secretaries — or there may be better representatives to be had, at least the bringing together of the representatives of the local, state, and regional organizations with the officers and leaders of the national organization for two- or three-day conferences perhaps twice a year, to discuss legislation and matters of national policy affecting the welfare of education in order that there can go back out to what has been commonly called the grass roots of school administration in this country a flow of information and understanding about the total educa- tional picture and structure as we move ahead. There were a number of ideas coming from the Committee and others working with us that seemed to us to offer great promise for the welfare and the strengthening of this organization up and down, and that is involved in the No. 1 item under "Additional Services," the building of enough financial and human resources (which we will deal with in a later section of the Report) in order that the parent organization may exercise leadership and furnish us the services and information in order that we may be knitted together on a nationwide front in an organization strong enough to release and capitalize upon the tremendous strength represented hv the superintendents of schools in America and their associates down at the local community level. Item No. 2 under "Additional Services" reads as follows: "The initiation of a nationwide program of teacher recruitment in cooperation with other major professional and lay groups." We are perfectly aware that such a program has been initiated already by the National Education Association and that other groups are interested in the problem. It is our belief, however, that the s\iperintendents of General Sessions 101 schools in America are in a unique position to furnish certain coordinatinj: and supplementary service in this field. Some of us had a pipe dream, perhaps, that we mi^ht ;io to certain of the major lay and professional organizations in America and that we mij^ht succeed in establishing some great la> commissions in America that would fasten on the attention of the American people the dire straits which face us at the present time with reference to a suppi\ of teachers to teach the youth of this country. At any rate, we are asking this Association through this recommendation to begin here and now to use all of the resources at its disposal to serve any and all agencies and to help meet the problem of a supply of teachers for the youth of this country. Item 3 in the section on "Additional Services": " The initiation of studies and programs looking toward further pro- fessionalization of the superinteiulenc\ through improved training pro- grams, refined standards of .selection by boards of education, and fuller and wider participation in the activities of the profession." 1 have dealt at some length with Section 11, having to do with additional services, first, because we believe the three recommendations are significant and, second, because they represent from our point of view the way the organization ought to get at the tackling of new jobs and new problems as they arise from time to time. We believe that annually or whenever prob- lems arise, the members of this organization through whatever channels are available, through its Executive Committee and officers, ought to have the problems presented to them, not in terms of a basic long-term platform, but in terms of recommendations dealing with the specific problems on our doorstep, in order that we may move off toward a solution of those par- ticular problems. We have tried first to put problems which we think significant, second to use these three as examples of how we think the organization might well identify and begin lo meet such problems in the future. Section III — General Recommendations. Section III of the Report has to do with general recommendations. Again, by and large they constitute our recommendations to the Executive Committee. You and I will not de- termine them in final form when we vote tomorrow. Our vote will in effect be a further recommendation to the members of the Executive Com- mittee and the oflicers of the Association indicating our acceptance or rejection of the section in total or item by item, as we mav care to register our opinion. I think you will pick up the significance of Section III when you have an opportunity to give your direct attention to it. Section 11 — .1 mendments to the Constitution tnul Bylaii's. I come now to Section IV of the Report, ha\ing in part to do with re\enue. It is a section which will not appear on the ballot tomorrow because the only way we can approach revenue is through a revision of the Constitution and B\laws of the organization, and that Constitution provides that such revision may be made only by the presentation of the proposed revision at one annual meeting, to be acted upon at the annual meeting a year later. 102 American Association of School Administrators This organization, if you will accept our analysis of it — and I think your own scrutiny will give you support of our position — is at the top and final limit of the exploitation of its present financial resources. In other words, we are now doing all we can do with and for education and the members of this Association with the limited income available to the organization. Therefore, if we envision, as individual members or as an organization, any extension of services, any more vital part in the welfare of education in America in the years that lie ahead, we are obliged to add to the financial resources of this organization. We tried to analyze a number of sources to which we might turn. We have checked the constitutionality, from the National Education Associa- tion and from the standpoint of our own organization, of certain approaches which might be made. I will say to you privately that some of us had the notion that we might be able to "shake down" each person who came to the annual meeting by, say, $2 and put some $20,000 or $30,000 in the pool in order to move off on some of these programs, but that isn't possible. It is like raising the mill rate in Minneapolis. The property owners tell me that isn't possible, either. We have tried to turn our attention to a good many other sources of revenue, and we have analyzed as many of these as we could. In the general recommendations. Section III, will come a suggestion that the fees charged for the Educational Research Service be increased. We have the idea that they ought to be placed on a graduated basis. They should be increased because the present price does not cover the cost. We think they should be graduated because larger school systems use the service more extensively than small school systems, and we believe they ought to pay for it. But that is an area for examination now by the Ex- ecutive Committee in terms of our recommendation. The specific proposal which we have to make with reference to finances is in terms of an amendment to the Bylaws of the Association which would increase the dues of this organization from $5 to $10. In line with the provision of the Bylaws governing amendments, I wish to represent the Planning Committee and present here in writing for the Planning Com- mittee the following proposed amendment to the Bylaws. Amend Article III of the Bylaws of the American Association of School Administrators, dealing with dues, by substituting $10 for $5, so that Article III will read as follows : The dues of this Association shall be $10 per year for both active and associate members, and shall be paid annually to the Executive Secretary. I wish to make sure that we are understood. This will not be on the ballot tomorrow. It will be before you as members of the organization for one year and will be subject to your ballot a year from now. I don't think we wish to debate it. We do wish to remind ourselves, however, that if we are to go ahead with this organization, it takes money. If you com- pare the dues which we, as significant members of the educational pro- fession, pay to our own organization with the dues which are paid by General Sessions 103 other people, professional and otherwise, our present dues of $5 are very, very low. The suggestions for dues for this organization ranped from $5 to $50, and I think you may feather from that that we were a bit conserva- tive, which is typical of school administrators, when we stopped at $10 in the matter. The other problem which has arisen, which is coNcred in Section IV of our Report but which will not be on the ballot, has to do with the matter of the annual meetini:: and the problem of a sint2;le meetinj^ as afrainst retjional meetings. We are submitting in writing in order to implement our recommendation that regional meetings be held at least once in three years, the following amendment to the Constitution. Article VII, Annual Meeting, amend by striking out the words "on the fourth Sunday in February and the four succeeding days," and substituting "at such time and place or places as shall be determined by the Executive Committee of the Association," so that Article VII of the Constitution will read as follows: The annual nice ti tig of this Association shall be held at such time and place or places as shall he determined by the Executive Committee of the Association. I think the impact of that must be evident. The present Constitution and Bylaws call for holding the annual meeting of this organization on the fourth Sunday in February and the four succeeding days. That has not been possible for some time, and we thought we would clear the Constitu- tion so that we could li\e by it in terms of changing conditions. The idea of giving the Executive Committee the authority to hold the annual meeting in terms of a single meeting or in terms of additional meetings seems to us to give the entire organization the flexibility which it needs in order to meet our problems and desires from time to time. There is one further item in Section III of the Report which T should like to mention. We have suggested that the organization, through its Ex- ecutive Committee and President, continue a Planning Committee for at least one more year in order to pick up the many suggestions, some of them significant, which have come to us looking toward the welfare of the organization, and in order that there may be some group responsible for following through in terms of the two amendments. I think now that I have finished. What we have tried to do here is to tell vou how your Committee went to work on the charge given to us by the officers of the Association. We have tried to develop a platform. We invite your careful consideration of it. We have made further suggestions to the Executive Committee, and we invite your support of those recom- mendations. We are submitting here this morning two amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws to be voted upon a year from now. If you are interested in our mature judgment, we believe the increase of both the human and financial resources of this organization is a plain necessity in order that we may meet our responsibility to American education. We cannot increase the human resources without increasing the financial resources. lO-l- American Association of School Administrators On behalf of the Committee, I wish to thank you for your patience, and I would be remiss if I did not say here that I have thus far had no privilege in this organization that has exceeded the privilege of working with the members of the Planning Committee appointed by Henry Hill. I thank vou very much. President Hill: I think it is evident that the whole idea back of this Committee's deliberations was well thought out so that everybody would have a chance to express his opinion for or against each and every item through his ballot tomorrow. We debated the privilege of free discussion on the floor, which normally would follow right now, and we rejected it to a degree by substituting therefor the special meeting held yesterday morning, where a person would have a better chance to be heard. There is another thing that I should mention. When the Planning Com- mittee met with the Executive Committee in Chicago in December, it was not that the Executive Committee was sitting in judgment on every single recommendation, but we wanted the benefit of whatever continuity of serv- ice the Executive Committee members had. So, this Report comes to you, after very careful consideration, with the general blessing and approval of the Executive Committee, and it is up to you to decide what you want to do about it. I should like, personalh' and for our Executive Committee and for you, to thank the members of the Planning Committee. I think I can say — and I know our Executive Secretary would agree — that we have not seen a committee who worked more earnestly and more enthusiastically. SIXTH GENERAL SESSION Tuesday Evening, March 4, 1947 PROGRAM \\\ THK ASSOCIATED EXHIBITORS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION PRESENTATION OF THE AMERICAN EDUCATION AWARD TO JAMES HRYANT CONANT R. E. STEWART, NEW YORK, NEW YORK; VICEPRESIDENT, ASSOCIATED EXHIBITORS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CHAIRMAN Stewart: Ladies and Gentlemen: In the ordinary course of events, Ed Sheridan, our president, would have presided tonigiit. just as your prop;ram states. Illness prevents his being here, so it is my privilege on behalf of the Associated Exhibitors of the National Education Association to welcome you. It is our hope that you will be enriched by what \ou hear and see and that you will long remember this evening. One of the functions of the Directors of the Associated Exhibitors is that of selecting each year the individual who will receive the American Education Award. Many names are considered every year, obviously. The identity of this year's recipient is now no secret. His achievements have been so many and so varied and so great that, based on achievement alone, only he could have been selected. Most people think of him only in terms of higher education. \ et there is another element of his make-up. perhaps not known to many, that made him the unanimous choice of the Directors. It is his deep interest in elementary and secondary education. Let me read the words inscribed on the Award. (See page 107.) Dr. Conant, it is much more than a pleasure — it is my privilege, sir, to present to you The American Education Award for 1947. ACCEPTANCE OF THE AMERICAN EDUCATION AWARD JAMES BRYANT CONANT, PRESIDENT, HARVARD l" M\ERSIT>', CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Thank _\ou, Mr. Stewart, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I must confess that when I came in this evening and read the citation which is printetl on the program, I felt a great deal of embarrassment, but after ha\ ing heard it read by Mr. Stewart I feel that really there is nothing 1 >hould do but crawl in a casket and wire for flowers! On the program it is suggested that at this moment I >.hould make a response. Needless to say, I value this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to the Associated Exhibitors who have paid me the high honor of giving me this award. I should particularh" like to express my gratitude to the indi\idual or individuals who wrote those flattering, imaginative, [ins] 106 American Association of School Administrators and perhaps not highly accurate words about this evening's recipient of the Award. But beyond expressing my gratitude and appreciation, what is there for me to say? Is this an occasion on which I should take the time and patience of this audience to give you an apologia pro vita sua, which, you will remember, the freshman translated as an apology for living in a sewer. Should I, among fellow educational administrators this evening, take my hair down, as it were, and say how it feels to be that kind of administrator who is in charge of a university? I think that would hardly be appropriate on this occasion. In fact, I am reminded of the story of the college president and the drunk who met by chance in a smoking car. You have probably heard it, but forgive my repetition. The convivial gentleman across the aisle smiled and said, "What is your line of business, friend?" and the college president drew himself up with all the dignity that a college president should have, and said, "I am a college president," to which the drunk waved his hand and said, "That's fine. So am I. Shake hands." The college president re- plied to his companion, "Well, may I ask what college you are the president of?" and the drunk smilingly replied, "I know I'm drunk, but I'm not drunk enough to tell j^ou that." In the kind words which are written about me here I find mention of the Harvard Report on General Education in a Free Society. All I can claim in regard to that particular document is to have suggested that a committee might be put to work, to have written a foreword, and to have suggested to the trustees, the president, and fellows of Harvard Univer- sity that they might put up $60,000 to make a study. I wish I had been here this afternoon because I understand from the program that there was a discussion of the Harvard Report and another document. Education for All Amei-ican Youth. I should have been interested indeed to hear those two documents contrasted and compared. About eighteen months ago I ventured to say that I thought they were two ways of saying very much the same things, but, as often happens to those who would compromise points of view among educators or among nations, I found that leading periodicals did not necessarily agree with me, for one journal came out showing with some rather lurid figures, statistics, and pictures that, indeed, the Harvard Report and Education for All American Youth were in com- plete disagreement, that one was the antithesis of the other. But I must not take this opportunity to speak about higher education, for your Directors who have honored me this evening have been good enough to mention my interest in secondary education, and I am particularly pleased that they did so. It would be an honor at any time to receive this award, but I feel it a particular honor to receive it here tonight at this meeting, a very large national meeting of* school administrators, the first, I understand, since the war, the first since 1942. The war is over. The task of education during the war at both the school and college level was strange, difficult to perform, complex in nature, and in many ways uncongenial to all of us. The way the To JAMES BRYANT CONANT Scienturi be\/ond the bounds oj a single science, educator whose con- cern is Jor all education, ardent and thotiiihljul ^^.'orkerjor a free and classless democracy, a leader among the nation's wartime dejenders IS PRESFXTFD THE AMERICAN EDUCATION AWARD He has brought to the administration of our oldest uni- versity a new solicitude for the scope and effectiveness of its service to the nation. Through its national scholarships he has helped to set a pattern for the fostering of talent of whatever nature, wherever found. By his encouragement of its program of general education he has given added strength to a growing movement for reshaping both the purposes and the methods of secondary and higher education. His interest has not confined itself to the work of his own university, nor even of universities in general. He has seen in the elementary and secondary schools of the nation a vital instrument for defending and promoting that social mobility on which the full realization of democracy depends. As a working member of the Educational Policies Commission, as a participant in the councils of other national bodies, as an independent advocate of the best possible education for all Americans, he has brought to bear on the attendant problems an idealism matched only by his sound judgment and cou- rageous imagination. In the anxious time preceding the war he saw clearly, and defined in terms which none could mistake, the dangers con- fronting democracy everywhere. To the war itself he devoted his full talents as scientist, administrator, and citizen, with results for which all America has reason to be grateful. In the days ahead we count on his continued leadership and his resourceful partisanship for democracy. The above is the ivording on the illuminated manuscript presented to James Bryant Conant by the Associated Exhibitors of the Na- tional Education Association March 4, 1947 108 American Association of School Administrators educational institutions responded to the challenge of the country in time of war I think has made history for the country. We now have the problems of the reconstruction period, so to speak, with which we are faced at the present moment. We meet here at a time when there is a great crisis in public education. We all realize the tremen- dous needs of the public schools, the vast increase in the amount of funds which the American people must be ready to spend particularly to meet the present emergency to change the rate of pay, the salary scale, of teachers In our public schools. I am delighted that public opinion is already aroused to the extent it is, but I am sure you gentlemen who are much closer to the whole situation than I am will agree that much more remains to be accom- plished. In my interest in public education, for the stimulation of which I have to thank very largely some members of this audience who were kind enough to invite me to serve on the Educational Policies Commission, 1 have been somewhat distressed from time to time to find how indefinite many sections of the American people were in the problems of the public schools, and 1 venture to think that the present emergency, although in part a reflection of changed economic conditions and the impact of the war does remind us of the need for dramatizing and reawakening the enthusiasm and interest of the American citizen in this great experiment in democracy, our unique system of public education. I wish that in every city the influential citizens could spend as much time — no, even a fraction of the time — thinking about the problems of the public schools and the needs of the public schools as they spend on the other worthwhile community undertakings — raising money for hospitals and for philanthropic organizations. It seems to me that we need, indeed, to take this opportunity, now that the war is over, to kindle the imagination of the American people, pushing forward in this great adventure, unique, I believe, in the whole history of the world, universal education on a democratic basis, the high schools as ladders of opportunity for all our youth. I am watching the clock, and I must check myself for I was told by our very kind presiding officer that, if possible, I was to be entertaining, but in all events I was to be brief. It is dangerous to put a college president on his feet without a manuscript. Public speaking with us is an occupational dis- ease, and we are notorious for our lack of terminal facilities. So, I am going to conclude by telling a story, not a story that even attempts to be humorous, but a very serious one for which I am indebted to one of the well-known members of your organization, who can tell it much better than I. He may have told it to you, but I am going to repeat it none the less, for I think it is a story that has a moral that ought to be spread all over the United States. I owe the story to Jerry Stoddard. He told it to me as one of the many interesting experiences he had in that visit to Japan as a member of the Educational Commission to advise General MacArthur on the future of Japanese education. As so many of you know, that Commission came General Sessions 109 back enormously impressed with the monolithic system of education they found in Japan, which over decades, if not centuries, had built a system where every signal from Tokyo went down through the whole educational system from the kindergarten right up to every detail of higher education, all controlled and uniHed in one scheme. With that in mind, this is the story as I recall it, and I shall tell it as best I can. On the last night before he was to leave, Mr. Stoddard was dining with the president of one of the big technical universities of Japan, a Japanese who spoke English well and had been in the United States many times. Mr. Stoddard said to him, "We have come to know each other quite well. Tell me something frankly. Why did you Japanese attack the United States? Why were you foolish enough to think you could win the war? You had been to our country. You knew our strength and power. What made you think you could defeat us?" The story goes, as 1 recall it. that the Japanese replied, "There were three things. In the first place, in December 1941. you must remember. the military situation seemed very favorable to us, indeed. We believed Germany had not only overrun Europe and neutralized Great Britain, but had neutralized Russia as well. In the second place, we knew your in- dustrial power, your potential power, but we never belie\ed you could manufacture so much stuff and get it all the way across the ocean in so short a time. It still seems a miracle to us. But more important than any of those is the third point. We believed we had done something here in Japan that the world had never seen done before. We thought through our educational sxstem we had inade of one nation, one mind. W^e thought we had welded our people together through our education and propaganda into a unity that nothing could shake and nothing could destroy. We thought we had a power there that was invincible indeed. But," he continued. "1 now see we were wrong. Yes, 1 am sure we were wrong. It is a strange thing, but there is more power and strength in that strange unity you have in the United States, that unity based on diversity, that unity based upon the tolerance of difference of opinion. Yes. that is where the real strength lies." I suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that in the words of that Japanese we have much to remember in the days ahead. The real power and strength is the unity based on diversity, the unity based on the tolerance of difference of opinion. For that unity the public schools and colleges of this country have been laboring for generations. For that unity we will continue to work in the days ahead. ATHLETICS IX EDUCATION JOHN KIERAN Chairman Stewart: For more years than I ha\e been a director of this Association we have tried to procure "Information Please" for this program. Ovir genial secretary, Paul Crabtree. will verify this. In his office 110 American Association of School Administrators he has a file of papers reams high that he could offer in evidence. He has spent many days, he has expended much effort, he has lost much sleep, but no pounds. Mr. Crabtree, could we prevail upon you to rise and offer yourself as an exhibit in support of that. [Applause] War, strikes, pestilence, and an occasional act of God, I suppose, have interfered at one time or another and have thwarted our efforts until to- night, when we can report some progress. It might be said that we have made a first down. In indicating his willingness to speak tonight, John Kieran told Paul Crabtree that he would be delighted to do it for several reasons. It seems that this is Mr. Kieran's first visit to Atlantic City, and we hope he will enjoy it. He, as an ornithologist, plans to study the birds in this area, although he asks to be relieved of any commitment that would limit the species that he wants to examine more closely. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my privilege to present John Kieran. Mr. Kieran : Unlike the college president, I have a manuscript, but I probably won't follow it. I never do. As a matter of fact, I have just a few notes down here. You are all educators, and I am supposed to talk on "Education and Athletics," or "Athletics and Education," as the prize fight men would put it. I don't want to be too heavy and bore you to tears, but I would like to start with two quotations. One you know very well, that old one about "A sound mind in a sound body," with which you are all doubtless very familiar. The other one is, "A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full de- scription of a happy state in this world." That is from John Locke, the famous English philosopher and educator, and that is from his essay, "Thoughts Concerning Education." Well, we all know that, and there is a further thought that I would urge educators to consider a little more than they do, and that is that all of us are animals. From recent years I should think that would be rather obvious, but anyhow we are animals of the class Mammals, order Primates, family Hominidae, genus Homo, misnamed specifically. Sapiens. As animals, we do need a definite amount of exercise to keep in good health. I am speaking of college athletics for two reasons: first, because it limits the subject and, second, I might possibly know a little bit about that subject, having spent perhaps thirty years or so writing about college athletics. In the years that we have boys and men in college — I say "boys and men" because I don't know anything about women's colleges. Specifically, in a family way, I know a little bit about them. My father was president of the largest women's college in the world. But I just got that through the kitchen. I didn't get that through the classroom. So, talking about men's colleges, we get the boys there roughly between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, and I believe that their physical well-being, their physical development at those ages, is almost as important as their intellectual devel- opment. The old sages knew that there was an intimate connection between General Sessions 111 the mind and the body and the health of the body and the health of the mind. After a lapse of three or four or five thousand years, psychiatrists are findinj:; it out all over again. I have often read criticisms of the overemphasis of athletics in the U. S. college life. I would like to speak a little bit about the underemphasis of it. We have a lot of trouble with football, and that is my chief topic for that reason. I believe that the trouble with football is not football. It is gate receipts. That is what affects and infects (where there is infection) all college athletics. The President of Harvard University is here, and I would like to speak a little bit about Harvard. I haven't looked into the uni\ersity's state of finances lately, but some years ago I did, and I discovered that at that time Harvard had an endowment of $143,000,000. I am glad to say it is up to $150,000,000 now, but at that time it was $143,000,000 and their annual budget for the running expenses of the institution was approximately $7,000,000 a year. The total expenditures for recreational and competitive activities at Harvard that year were roughly $500,000, which would be a little bit over 7 percent of the budget. That was to take care of the physical development and the recreational facilities of all the young men in Harvard at that time who were subject to such development. I think that is too small an amount of money to spend on the body, with all the other 92^/2 percent being spent on their brains or whatever passes for those things at Harvard. I think they could have spent a good deal more on developing the bodies of the men at Harvard. And another thing, that $500,000 that they spent. They sent one team out to collect that, the football team, and it collected it. It paid for all the other sports and a lot of the upkeep of the gymnasium, the playing field, the tennis courts, the rowing clubs, and one thing and another. I didn't think it quite fair that forty or fifty young men should have to go out and take a physical beating in order to provide recreational facilities for other less beaten-up members of the undergraduate body. It just didn't seem fair to me. We find that in what you might call a more gross aspect in many other places. We find that there is a compromise with regard to amateurism from practically pure amateurism, such as we find at Harvard, to other places where last fall the football students signed a petition asking that they be paid $75 a week for their services. On a financial basis they were well worth it. There is a sliding scale of compromise of amateurism from one end to the other. I don't think that is a good thing. It is full of hypocrisy, and it develops into a situation where the members of the football team are not representative of the undergraduates. There was one Rose Bowl team that had nine married men on it, and I know they were not representa- tive of the undergraduates of prewar days. I don't think that is representa- tive of the undergraduate body in our American colleges, and what I think we would like to have on the athletic field is a representative body of the undergraduates in competition. 112 American Association of School Administrators I could go on giving instances of the trouble that you run into with gate receipts, for instance. Basketball was invented in 1892 in what was then the Springfield YIVICA, and for fifty years there was never a breath of scandal connected with it ; but in recent years there was not only a breath of scandal, but a good, loud storm of scandal, practically a cyclone, and there is a man languishing in jail in New York City now for having bribed some basketball players in New York. The reason is that suddenly basketball became a big-time commercial venture in IVIadison Square Garden in New York. I am in favor of professional sports, but I am not in favor of profes- sional sports under the guise of amateur sports or intercollegiate sports. I could give you a list of high crimes and misdemeanors that have been committed in the name of college sports, but all college coaches and all college deans and presidents know all about them. There is just this that I would like to say about a football team that is a professional team at a college: Wherever you find one of that kind, either the president is in on it or he isn't up to his job. [Laughter] What is my suggestion of how to get rid of this festering sore? Definitely, that is what it is, gentlemen, and you know it if you have looked into it. If you have a representative team and you go to play a college that you know has hired players, and your students have their brains knocked out, because they do have a few brains, by others who do not necessarily have brains because they were hired for their muscle and their brawn, you object to that very strenuously. But there is a peculiar thing about these objections. The hired ruffians are always on the other team. They are never on our team. You go to prac- tically any university, and they can tell you who the hired thugs are on the other team and where they came from, who brought them there and how much they are paid, but not on their team. You go over to the other college, and they will give you the low-down on the first man's team. That is always the way. If you want to start an investigation, then go to Bellaire, Ohio, which for some reason seems to sprout very good football players. All the scouts from all over the country first descend on Bellaire, Ohio. \'ou would think it was the tobacco auction market when they go after the football players from around there. What is my suggestion ? ]\Iy suggestion is simply the abolition of gate receipts in college sport. We were brought up as children to believe that an Englishman's home was his castle. Well, it is his castle until he sells tickets for a tea in his parlor. Then it is no longer his castle. When any university sells a ticket to the public for a football game, it has entered into a contract with that ticket purchaser to produce a public spectacle. It no longer has complete control of its athletics. I believe that athletics are a function of the college. So, I think the only complete solution of this problem, to get rid of this infection which comes from the hiring of pro- fessional players for college and the consequent lowering of the standards of pla\- and the character of such competition, is to abolish gate receipts. General Sessions 113 I interrupt myself from time to time, and I will say that every time I interrupt myself, you arc the f;;ainer. I interrupt myself to say that you have never heard any scandal about the proselytizint^ of an oarsman in college. No, and there are no ji;ate receipts in rowing. All the scandal and the proselytizing are in football and, in a few colleges in basketball because basketball has become a pa\ ing game. It is only where the gate receipts come in that you get the scandal. So, I say wipe out the gate receipts, and you get rid of practically all the scandal. What do you do to replace it ? I have debated this subject with every- body, and I shall make no impression here because I have made no impres- sion anywhere. I have talked with Dr. James Rowland Angell, who is president of Yale. I have talked with Bill Hinghani from Dr. Conant's Harvard. I have talked with Alonzo Stagg, with Hurry-up Yost, and with Elmer Layden when he was director of athletics at Notre Dame. I asked how man\- there were in the student body at Notre Dame. Twenty-five hundred. I asked, "What does it cost a bov to go to Notre Dame for a year?" He replied. "I don't know." 1 said, "VVe will call it $1000." He said, "Well, money is no object with us." So we said $1000. I said, "Just add 10 percent to that, make it $1 100, and put the other $100 on your athletic quota so that that $100 will be devoted to recreational activities, competi- tion, and physical culture, and all the rest of it." With twenty-five hundred men, that would be $250,000 for his athletic budget, and there is something wrong with any university that can't run an athletic program on a $250,000 budget. There is one fact to consider, and that is that when you ha\e under this setup, for instance, a $500,000 athletic budget at a big place like Harvard, a considerable amount of that expense is inherent in the system that brings it in. I haven't figured exactly how much that is, but I am sure it would be probably 33 percent, possibly more. Not only that, hut at the same place where you have that, a good deal of the income is contributed by the students and their families, and under my scheme they would not have to contribute that. So, that would be saved. My scheme is to have the same persons who pay for all the rest of the college students' education pay for the athletic part, too. You say that maybe it can't be done. 1 know and you know many prep schools that have football teams, baseball teams, golf teams, track teams, basketball teams, and not a cent of gate receipts. They never charge any- thing. On that basis, the college is just an educational institution for older students, that is all. H a prep school can do it, I don't see why a college can't do it. As for the public schools and such institutions as the U. S. Mili- tary Academy and the U. S. Naval Academy. I think it is a very shortsighted policy on the part of those who provide all the rest of the money for the maintenance of those institutions to be niggardly about giving them money to stimulate the physical welfare of the students with a recreational and com- petitive program. It is picayune to talk about getting a $100,000 guarantee to send the Army football team across the country when you consider what the total co>it of maintaining the V. S. Military Academy is every year. 114 American Association of School Administrators It is a cold day. That is why I am getting a little hot about this subject. I spoke at Harvard many years ago, as I told Dr. Conant, before he was there, and it made no impression. They still have the same old system, which shows what effect I have at Harvard. [Laughter.] I think that if we should abolish gate receipts, we would get rid of a great many evils. I don't agree with what Dr. Hutchins did at Chicago. He abolished football. As I said to Dr. Conant, that was like burning down the house to get rid of the flies in the kitchen. I don't think that is a good scheme. I am in favor of foot- ball, and I am in favor of more football than we have now. I want more athletics, but when we have intercollegiate athletics, I would like to keep them intercollegiate, and when we have amateur athletics, I would like to keep them amateur. I don't believe in hypocrisy. I do believe in sport, in competition. I am in favor of professional sports, but I don't believe in professional sports in amateur guise. While it is true that many of the colleges profit by the advertising and by the gate receipts they get from football under the present system, I believe it is a profit without honor in this country. I thank you. THE HOUR OF CHARM Chairman Stewart: Ladies and Gentlemen, perhaps it could be said that those who arranged tonight's program made two first downs, for the next feature is one that long has been sought. War, famine, strikes, pesti- lence— no act of God, I hasten to add — have in former years delayed until tonight the appearance here of the next feature. It is no exaggeration, I am sure, to say that they have been heard by millions many times. Yet not so many have had the pleasure that is to be ours of seeing as we hear Phil Spitalny and his lovely young ladies in the "Hour of Charm." [A concert was then given by Phil Spitalny and the "Hour of Charm."] SEVENTH GENERAL SESSION Wednesday Morning, March X i-^47 EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY FOR WHOM ?— UNESCO'S ANSWER BERNARD DR/.I- WIIiSKI, DIRECTOR OF RECONSTRUCTION AND REHABILITATION, UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION, PARIS, FRANCE PRESIDENT Hill: Up to the present moment of this convention we have had only one disappointment in our speakers for the main meetinjjs of our Association. That is in the inability of the Honorable J. A. Krug;, Secretary of the Interior, to be present to fulfil his engagement. He had prepared a speech and had every intention of coming here, but he has been delayed on government business out in Honolulu. So, we are going to have a substitute speaker this morning. We think we are very fortunate to have him. He is going to speak first, and Governor Arnall will follow him. Our speaker was with the Polish Government in Exile during the world war and during that time lectured extensively to the British Forces. He was vicepresident of the Executive Committee of the Preparatory Commission for UNESCO. He is now a member of the Executive Hoard of the World Federation of the United Nations Association. His immediate task, the duties of which keep him in Paris a great deal of the time (he left Paris just a few days ago), is as Director of Educational Reconstruction for UNESCO. I take a great deal of pleasure in presenting him and feel that we are highly honored that he has so graciously consented to address us on rather short notice. I am happy, therefore, to present Dr. Bernard Drzewieski. Dr. Drzewieski: Lincoln said in his address, January 17, 1858, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." People understood at the end of this war that the nations which endured all the horrors of occupation would have to be helped. Human hearts could not tolerate the starvation of millions of children and mothers shivering in roofless houses or in the trenches left by the armies. Hence, the activities of UNRRA, which will pass on to history as one of the most inspiring realizations of the idea of brotherhood and solidarity of mankind, were instituted. Unfortunately, while it is easy to understand the physical hunger of human beings, it is more difficult to make people understand the spiritual and intellectual hunger of human hearts and human minds. UNRRA was prevented by its charter from dealing with the educational and cultural needs of the liberated countries. UNESCO in its preparatory period did not feel strong enough to treat in a serious way the problems of cultural reconstruction. In this regard the conference in November 1945 disappointed the representati\ es of the devastated countries. The repre- [115] 116 American Association of School Administrators sentative of one of these countries which suffered the most from the Nazi invasion abstained from voting approval of the UNESCO constitution, declaring, "We shall take part in the w^ork of the Preparatory Commission, but if, as time goes on, we see that the Preparatory Commission is more a research institution or a debating club than a relief organization, we shall have to revise our attitude toward it." When UNESCO started to work out its detailed program of activities, it gradually became clearer that each part of the program leads to cultural rehabilitation and reconstruction. For instance, it would be futile to work out an extensive program of a bibliographical clearinghouse before organ- izing help for libraries devastated by the war. One can dream about the development of art, but he is faced first of all with the inability of artists, musicians, and painters in the devastated countries to create without the minimum of necessary equipment. The most tragic situation is in the sphere of public education. For this reason a new reconstruction and rehabilitation program Mas worked out and accepted unanimously by the General Assembly of UNESCO in Novem- ber 1946. This program avoids changing UNESCO into a cultural UNRRA in that it deals with direct relief in only a few cases, such as pur- chasing war surplus material and shipping them to the universities of liberated countries, or dealing directly with the continuation of the fellow- ships program started so brilliantly by UNRRA. The main role of UNESCO is stimulating and coordinating voluntary assistance to the war- torn countries through the appropriate agencies in the more fortunate coun- tries. For this reason, UNESCO is most grateful to its American friends for organizing the Commission for International Educational Reconstruc- tion. The I'NESCO Secretariat also called recently a conference of the main international voluntary organizations with the idea of forming an advisory emergency committee to advise and assist in its activity. The leading idea of our activity brings us back to the above-quoted words of Lincoln. The world of today is divided by war's devastation into coun- tries in which the war undermined the very basis of cultural life and those which escaped invasion and occupation and which managed to preserve their high standard of cultural status. Our task in UNESCO is to reduce somewhat this discrepancy through the elevation of the educational and cultural conditions in the suffering countries. Let us consider the situation in which the war left these countries. As yet there are no exact figures on the number of children lost as a result of the war. Let me quote only one example from my country which states that the percent of children in relation to the total population has decreased from 43 percent in 1931 to 35 percent; 1,800,000 children under sixteen were lost. These losses occurred either directly through war activities or as the consequences of war conditions. With every year of the war, mor- tality increased as the result of epidemics such as typhoid, etc. The following figures indicate the physical effect of the war on the health of the children : In Czechoslovakia and Poland, 43.5 percent of the children of school age suffer from tuberculosis. In Czechoslovakia, the increase in tuberculosis is 19.8 per- General Sessions 117 cent for girls under six, 16.9 percent for boys; and 48.9 percent for girls under 14, 57.2 percent for boys. 'I'he percentage of active consumption amonj; children in Czcchoslos akia in the eleven to twelve age group was formerly 4.9 percent ; it is now 9 percent. The critical situation of the health of the children is general in the European countries, China, and the Philippines. The war caused moral devastation among the children and youth of iKCupied countries. Conditions of life under the occupation produced, on one side, the need for youngsters to secure food for the younger brothers and sisters. On the other hand, in many countries they took part in the underground struggle against the invaders. These experiences of youngsters developed among them a greater sense of responsibility, a more serious approach to life, and very often the heroic virtues of partnership in a patriotic movement. At the same time there developed a feeling of moral relativity by which the youngsters lost the realization of the difference between right and wrong. Thus, at the same time, life under the occupa- tion taught the youngsters rudeness and brutality. The definite influence of the occupation very often demoralized the young people in the liberated countries. On the other hand, youngsters deprived during the six years of war of teaching and schooling are manifesting an amazing hunger for knowledge. If the schools could immediately create the best possible educational oppor- tunities, no doubt in most cases the harmful influence of occupation could be eliminated to a great extent. However, thousands of buildings were destroyed in the occupied countries during the war. In many cases libraries, laboratories, clinics were com- pletely pillaged or burned. The material conditions of education in nearly all of these countries are very difficult. Then, too, the staffs of the educa- tional institutions suffered terrific losses. There are countries where the percent of professors and teachers exterminated during the war reaches about 40 percent. As conditions of life in the liberated countries are still extremely difficult, and since in general the salaries of teachers are much lower comparatively than in other professions, one of the most serious problems is the mass shifting of educators into commercial and other occupations affording a higher degree of security and better living condi- tions than education. Realizing the importance of education, all these countries are making a tremendous effort to fill the gap? and raise the level of education. Our preliminary classification of countries into donors and recipients is gradually being revised since some of these countries, like Denmark and Norway, have largely overcome war difficulties; others, like Holland and Czechoslovakia, have made great strides toward overcoming these difficulties. In all these countries, there is the growing feeling that help in cultural rehabilitation ought to be based on the principle of mutual aid. It means an interchange of services according to the capacity of each of these countries. This does not mean that those countries which did not suffer directly from the horrors of war can avoid helping in this task of educational reconstruction. 118 American Association of School Administrators What are the most urgent needs? The General Conference of UNESCO decided to open a campaign with a goal of $100,000,000 in goods, services, and cash to be collected during 1947. Let me stress immediately that our constitution allows us to accept gifts in money. I shall be only too happy to receive as much as possible to permit purchasing in your country hundreds of wireless sets, microscopes, film projectors, etc., which are so scarce in the devastated countries. What matters more is the continuous evaluation of the gifts in kind offered for the cultural rehabilitation as the publicity concerning the volume of your contributions will serve as an incentive to raise more and more help. UNESCO can assist your efforts in another way. Information is being collected concerning the needs of separate countries. UNESCO will be able to provide information which will enable the appropriate coordinating agency in each country to advise individuals and organizations how and where to spend the money in the most efficient way. More than money, we need goods collected and distributed by voluntary organizations. We need books and periodicals published since 1939, such as standard literary classics, historical works, up-to-date scientific and technical literature, microfilms of books, projectors for microfilms. Fo-r the dissemination of information through mass media we need film projectors, epidiascopes, maps, radio sets, records, etc. Natural science equipment of all kinds is needed. For artistic rehabilitation we need musical instruments, and parts, published music, manuscript music paper, reproductions of paintings and sculpture, albums of art history, and all such materials for the teaching of the arts in the schools. Fellowships represent another great need. It must be realized that our scientists, doctors, writers, artists, engineers, technicians, nutritionists, etc., were isolated from the sources and progress in the development of human culture for six years. The best means of filling the gaps is enabling such persons to visit the countries which are responsible for these achievements. I have paid tribute to UNRRA for its fellowship training program. The Institute of International Education and many other American agencies are to be commended for the fellowships which they offer. The British Council of the United Kingdom has been of assistance in this regard as have the American foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Today, UNESCO hopes, in close collaboration with the other specialized agencies of the United Nations, to meet such needs in all the liberated countries. I have tried to picture for you the gloomy aspect of postwar life in the devastated countries and the needs which ought to be met by all who are able to assist. Educational opportunity has been achieved in many countries. Now we must achieve a widening of educational opportunity all over the world. "Educatio?! has a role of the first importance to play in building the foundation of a just and lasting peace." These are the words of your great statesman, Cordell Hull. I am sure that our contribution to the vital task of a lasting peace includes making educational oppor- tunity for all one of the first objectives of educators all OYfY the world. General Sessions 1 19 WHOSE COUNTRY IS THIS, ANYWAY? THE HONORABLE ELLIS G. ARNALL, FORMER GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA President Hill: If I recall correctly, Mr. Arnall was cither the first or the second speaker that we secured for our program several months ago. Among the several reasons, paramount was his championship of public education as Governor of Georgia. We, of course, had no idea that before the convention he would become famous as one of Georgia's two or three concurrent governors or that he would distinguish himself on "Information Please," or that he would write a book entitled The Shore Dimly Seen, a book which, in my opinion, might well be read and which will be enjoyed by the liberals, if we can still distinguish between liberals and communists, and which ought to be compulsory reading for the conservatives, if you can still distinguish between conservatives and Fascists. I hope we can keep a sense of humor long enough during these times to do that. Mr. Arnall has managed to crowd a lot of interesting living in his life so far, and yet in the sense of the noted book which sa\s that life begins at forty, he has not even begun to live. Without more ado, it is a great deal of pleasure to present the Hon- orable Ellis G. Arnall of Georgia, who will speak to us on the subject, "Whose Country Is This, Anyway?" Mr. Arnall: Dr. Henry Hill and Friends of the American Association of School Administrators: I am delighted still to be the second speaker on your program. I am delighted to come today to talk with you for a while about some things that I like to talk about and some things that seem to me need to be talked about all over America today. There is no group of people in the length and breadth of our great common country who, by position and attainment, are better able to carry across to all the people of this country a vital message and a vital program if we are to go forward progressively as the great democratic nation that we are today. At the outset let me say to you friends of education here that we are living in a fast-moving world in which we see change on every side and at every hand. There is never a dull moment. The scene of events shifts and changes with such rapidity that it is difficult, if not entirely impossible, to keep abreast of the moving times ; and because change is so apparent on every side and at every hand sometimes we are prone to forget the experi- ences of yesterday and yesteryear. Today let me recall to you the fact that not many days, not many months, not many years ago, our nation was engaged in an all-out effort to preserve our way of life and our system of government. That effort was successful, and we have now entered into a great period of transition whereby we must adapt our educational establishment, our very way of life itself, to a peacetime economy and to the realization that we, as the leading nation in all the world, cannot live apart from the rest of the world, but that we are in truth and in fact one world. I think that we are one world not because man has triumphed over time 120 American Association of School Administrators and distance and subjufzated the air, but we live in one world because everywhere humankind is the same. Likewise, it seems to me, we must recognize that we have either one world or no world, and in this peculiar day and time in which we live, beset with change, it is significant to note that nowhere in all the world can sorne men be free until everywhere all men are free, and in so far as any man's or any woman's freedom is interfered with anywhere in all the world, to some extent that is an assault on the freedom of all men wherever they may live. So, we move into this period of one world in truth and in fact, a period in which we must recognize, strange as it is for me to relate it, that there are really not four freedoms, there are not ten freedoms, there are not a hundred freedoms. There is only one freedom, and that is the right of every man to live his life as he will, so long as in the exercise of his freedom he interferes with the freedom of no other man. There are many facets to freedom, but in the final analysis there must be a totality of freedom, a completeness of freedom in itself. If we are to have freedom and liberty throughout the world, it seems to me that first of all we must dedicate ourselves to maintaining freedom and liberty right where we are. I believe in international cooperation. It is our duty, whether we like it or not, to live with other nations and to assume worldwide obligations, but I tell you, it is high time that we start doing some things right where we are that will help make a better world. If we would cry out against injustice throughout the world, we must first eradicate injustice right in our common country. If we would speak out for righteousness throughout the world, we must first have righteousness right where we are. If we would speak out for goodwill, it is imperative that goodwill be established in our own great nation. While we bemoan the troubles of the world, such as imperialism and colonialism, we might give some consideration to a system of imperialism and colonialism that has grown up right in our own common country. I am interested in whether the Bulgars can vote and whether there are free elections in Poland, but I, for one, am interested in whether the people of America can vote, whether we hold free elections in this country. No matter how we look at world affairs, we must realize that it is imperative we first get our own house in order. Today, in speaking to you school administrators, let's talk for a while about how we are going about getting our own house in order, how we are going to insure righteousness and justice and goodwill here, how we are going to make of our own nation a paragon of virtue. First of all, let me tell you that the most important thing in the United States today is faith in the future. We need faith in our own country. We need faith in our own people. We need faith in our own individual ability to measure up to our responsibility to do the job ahead. In a word, we need faith in the good heart and the good sense of every man, wherever man may be. General Sessions 121 If \vr arc to h:nr faith in our country, it is imperativp that wc have freedom and liberty unbridled, except in so far as freedom and liberty dejicncrate into license; and if we are to be free, it is imperative that we have intellectual freedom, that the mind of nuin lie permitted to expand and develop, that our educational establishments be adequately financed, to the end that we may broaden the educational frontier, to the end that we may ha\e for all our people the izreatest possible dej^ree of intellectual freedom and intellectual liberty. There are some things that we neeil to do in the United States today if we are adequatel\' to pro\ ide a system of education for the youn^ people of our land and for the adults who were denied education, so that they may utilize their full potentials, so that they may no forward fully de- veloped, makin' of which they are a part. 1 have lonji^ believed that education offers to the world its own good hope, that education is the most \ital and the most dynamic factor in America toda\-. that every ill that besets our cominon country is due to only one thin^^ and that is the lack of adequate educational opportunities for all our people. I say "all our people" because this country actually, in truth and in fact, belonfis to all the people of the Ignited States. It does not belong only to those who live in the North or those who li\e in the East, the South or the West, but it belongs to all the people irrespective of where they live. This country does not belong to those of one race or one creed or one cult, but it belongs to all the people irrespective of their creed and their color. This country does not belong to the monopolists, those selfish men and women who \\ould exploit our resources, human and natural, for their own selfish aggrandizement and ad\antage. It belongs to all the people of America. It doe> not belong to pressure groups that clamor for special privilege. No, it belongs to the rank and file of Americans, to all the people of our common land. I like to think as Richard Rumbold thought in 1685 when he was put to death there on the scaffold in England for his part in the Cromwellian Revolution — I like to think as he thought when he said, "I could never believe that Pro\idcnce sent a few men into this world ready booted and spurred to ride and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden." No, this country belongs to all our people, and if it is to belong to all our people we must see to it that all the people of America have adequate educational opportunities and adequate educational advantages. Yes, I believe in education. It may interest some of you to know that I became governor of my state on an educational program. The incumbent governor had interfered with colleges and schools, had undertaken to say what should be taught and what could not be taught; had undertaken to say who could teach and who could not teach, had undertaken to say what books could be read and what books should be burned. As a result of that political control of education in my state, the respectable accrediting agencies throughout the nation removeil the Georgia institutions from accredited 122 American Association of School Administrators standing, and that set a great fire that swept from one end of the state to the other and, as a result, the aroused people threw off demagogic control of education and established me as governor of that state. So, I believe in education, having had an educational background in my fight for governor. But just between us, I really didn't believe in educa- tion as I do today until Alvin, my seven-year-old son, came home while we were there in the mansion and, on those few nights when I was privileged to be there with my family, would sit on my knee and take his first-grade primer and read to me about Alice and Jerry and Joe-Jump-Up. That is when I began to believe in education. I tell you that education is a living thing; it is a vital thing, and when it comes home to each of us and we realize that the minds, the characters, the lives of our children are being molded by educators, then it is high time that we put on our armor and do battle for the cause of education. We need to do battle for the cause of education today, but it is a whole- some thing that all through America today the people are becoming more conscious of the need of adequate education than they have ever been before in the history of our common country. I attribute this great awaken- ing on the part of the people to the school administrators and to the schoolteachers all over this nation who at last are realizing that they have a duty to get out and fight this fight not for themselves, but for children and young people all over America. The educational profession for years has been known as one that was very generous, as one that was very much inclined to dwell in cloistered halls and leave the public forum and the battle in the workaday world to other hands. I am glad that all over the nation the teachers and the educators are aroused, and I would like the nation to know that your fight is not a selfish fight, but is a fight for the nation's most priceless heritage, our boys and girls, and in truth and in fact that is so. Yes, the national disgrace today in our quest for freedom is the fact that there is not, to my knowledge, an adequately financed school system in the entire nation. The greatest disgrace inflicted upon our country is the fact that while we prate of education and the dignity of man, yet I tell you that we do not today have a proper educational establishment. Our school financing all over this nation is unworthy of the best efforts of a single state or a single local school system. It seems to me that unless we recognize that the schoolteachers must be paid living wages, it is inevitable that instead of improving the standard of our education as we go forward, the standard will suffer from year to year, fewer competent teachers will be attracted to the profession, and the schools will be greatly understaffed. It is imperative that we put education first. It is imperative that we pay our teachers more adequately. I am proud that during my administration as governor of my state — the schoolteachers were largely responsible for it — the state was able to increase teachers' salaries in a period of four years 126 percent. I take some pardonable pride for the fact that during my administration we spent 50 cents out of every tax dollar of current operating costs for General Sessions 123 common schools and hi;,'lier education. I am proud of tlie fact that, under the standard of contributions by the state as compared to local units of school administration, wc were able in the period of four years to lift Georgia from forty-seventh place in the nation to fourth place. [Applause] But still we have not done enough, and still the schoolteachers in my state are the poorest paid class of public servants. It seems to me that in approaching school financing there are some things that we must recognize at the outset. First of all, that whatever money is going to be paid to school people should actually be guaranteed to be paid to them. Sometimes, you know, in the school systems in some states we have paid teachers with promises, promises that never material- ized into hard cash dollars. Those types of promises are frauds on the people. I tell you that we need to have definite guaranteed school financing in all the states of our entire country, and the school people should not be required to wage an all-out lobby effort at each session of the legislature to see that the school appropriations are definitely fixed and are paid. I believe, for example, that the school appropriation in every state should be provided in the state constitution and whether there is enough money to pay anyone else or not, that the schools should get the first money that goes into the till. [Applause] Is that favoritism? Of course it is favoritism! But it is high time that the schools receive favoritism. School is the best invest- ment a state can make, an investment in boys and girls, in minds and hearts, in flesh and blood. So why not favor the schools? They have been disfavored all these years. If we are to have adequate school financing all over this country, we must recognize, as intelligent American citizens, that while the states do have a function, that while the cities do have a function, that while the local school districts and counties have a function, yet the adequate support of education is a national responsibility. [Applause] Let me state that again. I have no patience with those who say it is perfectly permissible for the federal government, through a system of grants in aid, to do everything known to man except spend money for the most important governmental function, and that is educating boys and girls. [Applause] The other day I was in El Paso, Texas. They were quite concerned down there on the Border about what they call the hoof and mouth disease over in Mexico, which is afflicting the Mexican cattle. They are quite concerned because the hoof and mouth disease in Mexico prevents the import of cattle into this country. The customs have fallen ofif, and there is a shortage of cattle and of meat. Our Congress is concerned about that, and it is right that the Congress should be concerned about it. So, the Congress is now considering appropriating money to send into Mexico, to send our own veterinarians down there, our own doctors, to undertake to treat the Mexican cattle in Mexico, so as to eradicate the hoof and mouth disease so that we can continue our importation of Mexican cattle there on the Border. That is a good thing, but doesn't it strike you as being awfully silly that while we are spending money in Mexico on the hoof and mouth 124 American Association of School Administrators disease of Mexican cattle, we have boys and girls in our own country who are denied an adequate education ? Let's awaken. Let's take the message to Garcia. Let's let the whole people know that we are insisting that the federal government assume its proper responsibility for the education of boys and girls. Someone is going to ask, "Do you mean by that that you advocate federal control ?" No, I don't advocate federal control, whatever that is, but I tell you what I do advocate. I advocate standards set up by the federal government, and, quite frankly, it may surprise >'ou for me, a former governor of a great southern state, to tell you that I actually love the federal government ! [Laughter] I am tired of having people condemn the federal government. Listen. As bad as our critics have tried to lead us to believe it is, it is the best government in the world today. [Applause] T have implicit confidence and implicit trust in the federal government. My kid brother wore the uniform of this country. Aly neighbor's boy gave his life. What is wrong with the government? When did it get to where we can't trust our own government? No, not federal control, because the states can administer and the local communities can administer the funds more intelligently, if you please, than the federal government because we are more familiar with local conditions, but let's have federal aid to education. Let's let every man and every woman in the United States know that, irrespective of the accident of birth, every American citizen is going to get an adequate education. We recognize that in the states. In my state, as in your state, I am sure, we have what we call educational equalization funds, whereby we siphon money into those poor and rural districts from the centers of population where they have high tax values, to equalize education, because we in Georgia recognize that it is to our advantage to see that every Georgian is educated. Confidentially, it is to your advantage, too. It is to our advantage to see that your people are educated. The great trouble with the South, my friends, Is that, try as we will, spending 50 percent of our income for education, because we are relatively poor, because we have been bound with shackles forged outside of our own domain, because we have not yet fully been readmitted to the Union, we have poverty problems. While the South exports many things, the one thing that we export that we are least proud of is illiteracy. If your states export illiteracy, as many of your states do, it is a national problem. So, we need adequate educational aid from the federal government. Is that so radical? I think that just about every college in the United States today is already financed by the federal government through the GI benefits and land grants. Listen, let's face the fact. Let's go all-out for federal aid to local units of school administration. Let's insist that the time is coming when we are going to see that no boy and no girl, whether he lives in Oregon or Utah or Alabama or New Jersey, will be denied a good education for lack of adequate finance. That is an imperative need of the day and hour. The states can help, local units can help, but finally we are going to have to have aid from the federal government. I am General Sessions 125 delighted that this Association is so vigorously insisting that the federal Congress recognize its responsibility to the pt'opie. The next thing we need if \vc are to have freedom in this country based on intellectual freedom, a common country so that all of our people may have a share in its ownership and possession, is to see that not only the schools are adequately financed, hut the teachers are properly qualified. [Applause] \'ou have teachers in many of the public-school systems of America who are not high-school graduates. We are glad to have any teacher, the shortage has been so acute, but we need well-trained teachers if we are to challenge the minds of these >oung people, if we are to go forward progressively, endowing them intellectually for their pursuit of liberty and freedom. Then, it seems to me that we have got to have freedom in our educa- tional institutions. No institutions can be free, no teachers can be free, no students can be free unless they have a chance to study those things that an inquiring mind might interest itself in. It seems to me that education today all over America is under attack by the demagogs, the rabblerousers. Unable to find anything else wrong, some of them are launching themselves in an all-out attack against the young people in our schools and colleges. It seems to irie that in our schools and colleges we should emphasize, we should teach, we should stress as no other one thing, the fact that the democratic concept of life and gov- ernment is the finest ever devised by the mind of man. What this country needs is not to become frightened of fascism or communism, but what we need to do is to believe more in democracy. AVhat we need to do is to realize that democracy is not an easy way of life. Democracy is not a lazy man's form of government. ^ ou ha\e to work at it. 1, for one, am tired of hearing so much talk about communism and fascism. I want to hear more talk about democracy. [Applause] Democracy has nothing to fear from outside. If our way of life and our system of government is not the best, it cannot possibly survive, but I tell you it is the best. AVhat we need is a positive approach rather than a negative approach. Communism and fascism are alike. Each undertakes to enslave the individual and lose him in the mass. Each undertakes to take away individual liberty and individual freedom. There is no difference between them so far as their ultimate goal is concerned, and no normal American would ever be happy under a fascist system or under a communistic s>stem. Why do I say that? Listen, my friends. Hecause normal Americans, endowed with education, want to be onl\ normal Americans. No normal American wants to be either slave or king. We want to be normal Americans. No normal American would be satisfied with the security offered to him purely to be found in the almshouse or in the poorhouse. What we normal Americans want is opportunit\' to make of ourselves what we will, endowed with adequate educational attainments. We can do that only under the demo- cratic way and under the competitive capitalistic s\stem of economics. So, have no fear aboiit the onslaughts against democracy from ideologies 126 American Association of School Administrators abhorrent to our way of thinking and our way of life. The danger to democracy, my friends, the danger to the free competitive enterprise system is not from without. The danger is from within. We must work at democracy, we must talk democracy, we must make it a living thing, if it is to maintain its position as a way of life and a system of government most in tune with the desires of mankind. We need intellectual freedom and we must see to it that our colleges and schools are not taken over by the demagogs who would impose their will upon our instructors and upon our teachers. Academic freedom and civil rights are a part of the American tradition. If we are to give men that degree of intellectual freedom whereby they may in truth and in fact be free, if we are to have a common country belonging to all our people, we must realize that, just as it is that education is far behind in the matter of financing, so it is that our educational establishments are woefully inade- quate today to care for the children, the young people, and the adults who desire to enter those institutions. We need buildings, we need better equipment, not in one community, not in one school, but in every college and every school system in America today. Not only must we pay teachers adequately to attract them into the profession, to bring about a desire on their part to improve their attain- ments, but likewise we must provide a system of retirement pay whereby when they reach an age of life when they leave the teaching profession they may have some stipend upon which they may spend their days. When I became governor of my state, one of the first things we did, working with the Georgia Education Association, was to establish a system of teacher retirement benefits. We were awfully proud of that step forward. Then, after some months had passed, the first teachers who were beneficiaries of that system, who were to draw their retirement checks, came to my office and we were to have a great ceremony there, with pictures made, with education officials, with the teachers, and with the governor presenting the retirement checks to these worthy school people. I was quite delighted about the whole thing until I happened to look down at one of the checks. I tell you that many teacher retirement systems in effect today in many states and many school systems are a fraud on the teachers. [Applause] We have got to pay adequate retirement compensation whereby teachers may keep bodies and souls together. I rather think there is another imperative thing that we must do. We must have teacher tenure all over this land so that the teachers may be secure in their work so long as they measure up to the standards, but we must likewise be very careful as we put in teacher tenure in many of the school systems that we do not inadvertently freeze into the system teachers of low qualifications whereby for all time they will be a part of the system. They should improve themselves so that when they are blanketed into a system they may be worthy members to carry on the teaching profession. After all the things that I have talked about are done, it seems to me that we will not yet have the teaching staff that we need in the United States ; we will not yet have the vital and the dynamic system that will General Sessions 127 appeal to school men and school women, to younp people who may enter" the teachin;^ profession, until we do something else that to me is more important than all the things I have talked about. That is, we must realize that educators, school administrators, and schoolteachers are human beings. [Applause] We have to recognize that men and women who devote their lives to teaching must be accepted as human beings, as part of the com- munity in which they live, to live a normal life devoted to the teaching and instruction of young people. I know school systems in some parts of this country where a school- teacher cannot maintain her position if, for example, she plays bridge, or if she has dates, if unmarried. For that matter, if she is unmarried and becomes engaged and married, enters into the holiest state ordained by God, she is promptly dismissed. Who wants to be a schoolteacher? [Laughter] Make no mistake about it, the schoolteachers must be per- mitted to live normal lives. During the war, every time a mean job came up and no one else could be found or prevailed upon to do the job, we called in our school adminis- trators and our schoolteachers and spoke to them in broad platitudes about the lives of sacrificial service that they lead and expressed the belief that they must get real consolation and real comfort from the fact that they are working so assiduously and so diligently to build up the youth of our country. Then we intimated that since they were devoted to a life of service anyway, why should they not agree to run the salvage campaigns or sell bonds and war stamps or take a school census or register the boys and girls for service, and all that kind of thing? And they did it. They were delighted to do it. But I wondered time and time again why people didn't recognize that we were asking our school people to do just a little more than their proper share because we believe, unfortunately, that school people were set apart, that their destiny was a life of drudgery. Somehow in many communities in this entire nation we look at schoolteachers as museum pieces, to be transplanted around for any usable purpose. Yes, as soon as we diligently, vigorously carry this fight for expanded education to all our people, we are going to begin to get somewhere. It is not sufficient that we who believe in public schools and public education and education of all kinds meet together and undertake to convert each other. The great mistake has been that we of like faith and like belief meet together so frequently to encourage each other, whereas we need to do some missionary work, we need to expand our fields of operation, we need to talk to our service clubs, and civic clubs, in our churches and in our community affairs. We need to keep the torch burning brightly until there is an eternal, complete, absolute victory for educa- tional freedom in this country of ours. I believe that by having this freedom that can be brought about, America can go forward to the end that we may utilize our full capabilities and our full resources. But there are two other items that are tremendously important in dis- 128 American Association of School Administrators cussing a program of the full development of our country. Education first, and then the health of our people is imperative also. Forty percent of the young men called up for Selective Service were unable to pass the physical examination. It is said that the young people in many school systems have an appalling disease rate. I tell you we need health attention in the United States. Do I believe in socialized medicine? Well, I confess I don't know what socialized medicine is. I have not yet found anyone who could tell me what socialized medicine is. I find that there is violent disagreement, for example, between the medical men on the one hand and sick people on the other. I don't know what socialized medicine is. If you mean the government's paying doctors and augmenting nurses, I believe in that because we are doing it this very day in every state in the Union ; but if you mean taking over the medical profession lock, stock, and barrel, designating every doctor with a number and every patient wnth a number, I say, no, I do not believe in that system. I do want the time to come in the United States when every boy and e\ery girl can have adequate education and good health, and whatever the system is that must bring those things about, I, for one, maintain the need is such that the system would be justified. I hope the medical profession will do the job. It can. The job must be done. The time must come in the United States when men and women and children and babies shall not be permitted to die for lack of adequate medical attention. [Applause] If we give to all the people in this country adequate health and education, the next most imperative problem that confronts us is this thing called making a living. I tell you we need to go forward under the belief that economic freedom, economic liberty, today stands as a parallel and as a corollary to political liberty and political freedom. No man who is hungry can be free. We must see to it that all the people in our common country have adequate economic opportunity and better things in life. It can be done if we have the will to do so and the courage to do so. Instead of supporting a population of 142 million, this country can easily support a population of 275 million, giving to all of our people better things in life, more opportunity, higher standards of living, a more abundant economy. If we will determine to have faith in our ability to do that and couple that faith with adequate education and the health essential to our people, we can move forward ; but if we are going to have economic opportunity for all the people in America, we have got to view this country as a common country. Just as the nation could not long endure half slave and half free, it cannot forever endure half a colonial appendage and half imperial domain. We have got to sow industry all over America. We have to take it out of the hothouse along the Eastern Seaboard. We must have decentralization of industry. We must see to it that the people in all sections of this land are permitted to fabricate and process and manu- facture their raw materials into finished goods. AVhen we do that, we will General Sessions 129 expand economic opportunity. There will be shifts in population, to be sure, but a wholesome result will come about whereby the people in the North, the South, the East, and the West, living in a common country, can have greater economic opportunity. The other night I spoke in Akron, Ohio, and I said, "What this country needs is to get some of this rubber industry out of Akron." And I believe it. Not only would it help the other sections of the country, but in turn it would help Akron, because when the people in the South and the West have more income, they become greater users of the products made in other sections of the nation. So it is, if we trade with one another, there comes about a greater need for goods and services. We must recognize that this is a common country and that there is no reason that we cannot have a higher standard of living and greater abun- dance for our people if we have the courage to do so. Yes. the only limitation on our realization of tomorrow is the limitation which we impose today. It is our lack of faith, our lack of adequate educa- tional attainment, our lack of economic opportunity so prevalent in many places in the United States today. That is the disease that besets us, but I have great faith that this nation in the days that lie ahead will be able to get its own house in order, will be able to enthrone justice and right- eousness and goodwill and understanding. When that is done, then we shall stand foursquare before the other nations of the world, speaking out for justice and righteousness and goodwill. The place to start is where we are. For you and mc, the labor that we will make will largely be confined to our local vineyards. For you and me, the contribution we will make for freedom, for liberty, must be made necessarily within the limitations of our nwn communities. But. working together and working alike, believing in these fundamental concepts, we can start such a devastating fire in our communities that it will sweep the entire nation. Thus our people e\er\- where w'ill be awakened to the need of education and health and economic opportunities to the end that this nation will not be content to be merely the greatest nation on the face of the .earth, but will determine to grow in usefulness, in stature, in goodwill, in righteousness and justice; realizing that we have a part to play in international affairs, realizing that first we must get our own house in order, realizing that nowhere in all the world can some men be free until everywhere all men are free; remembering that liberty and freedom must first be found in intellectual attainments and in- tellectual freedom and liberty, and that that field is peculiarly set apart for men and women engaged in education. The need is great. The victory is in sight. It can be won. Let us, as we leave this meeting here in Atlantic City, each determine to speak out vigorously, without fear of personal cost, for this important and imperative approach to a better land and a better world, remembering that America belongs to all the people, remembering that for you and me the place where we are i-; holy groimd. mr '«.J;- i "%-'? -;^-m^. '*l«fe: (1^ ^^s? ,^?- ;jpC m' %*' ;i.,«r ■ f'M ! »: 1- 4 1 p; EIGHTH GENHRAL SESSION Wednesday Evening, March X J^!^47 THE EDUCATIONAL CRISIS: 'I'IMK FOR AN OFFENSIVE PROORAM MRS. KUr.FM' MI'VKR, Tlir 11 ' dshiil //to n I'osf. W ASIIIXr.TON. n. c. jRESiDENT Hill: Our first speaker this cveninj^ is widely known for her work with The jrash'tiujioii Post and for her liberal and constructive outlook on all the problems of the nation. She has especially appealed to many of us because of her forthrij^ht interest in education both through the columns of The JFashington Post and throu;2;h her speeches and other writings, and for her willingness to say things which distinguished laymen can say but which are somewhat discounted if we as professional educators say them. Mrs. Meyer has several claims to fame, but so far as I am concerned she is famous because of this very real interest in teachers and education and boys and girls. It is my pleasure and my great honor to present Mrs. Meyer. Her subject is "The Educational Crisis: Time for an Offensive Program." Mrs. Eugene Meyer. Mrs. Meyer: Dr. Hill, Dr. Conant, and Friends: Vou cannot imagine how much courage it took to accept your invitation to speak before this audience. My maturity is such that I can maintain it before two and perhaps even three school principals. Hut I knew beforehand that ten thousand top-rank administrators would cause a reversion to my infantilism. This is because I hark back to a distant era when examinations were examinations and you had to know something to pass them. That often caused me acute embarrassment — so much so that for years after I gradu- ated from college my worst nightmare was taking an examination in a subject of which I knew absolutely nothing. Well, here I am about to live that nightmare in grimmest reality. But I believe things have changed in the educational scene. I hear examinations can now be passed if you have good intentions and just do your best. So I hope to get by on that basis. This convention, I take it, wishes to face its problems realistically. The economic situation in which we find ourselves and the economic problems that lie ahead of us involve forces here and abroad that are not entirely in our own control. Hut in this critical period we are faced with some issues that are of our own making and that can be decided by ourselves alone if we have but the will to face them. Among these problems that are of our own making, the present lamentable condition of our public education is one of the gravest. And one of the most disheartening aspects of this problem is the fact that we are trying to meet it with palliatives and stop- gaps and dishonesty. More than to anything else, this applies to the teachers' strikes. In that connection let me state frankly that I think this convention missed the [131 ] 132 American Association of School Administrators opportunity of a lifetime. With the Buffalo teachers' strike focusing the attention of the nation on your assemblage, you passed a resolution saying that vou deplored such strikes. Deploring is the easiest thing anybody can do. What a setting you had in which to put the blame where it belongs! What a chance to tell the American people the bitter truth! Teachers' strikes are not the fault of the teachers. We are a lot of hypocrites to take it out on the teachers. Teachers' strikes are not the fault of the teachers, but of the American people. These strikes are a social disgrace of Avhich the whole nation should be ashamed. Let us not forget that our teachers as a group are slow even to utter justified complaints. The strike and even the threat of a strike are with them measures of last resort. And yet, in spite of their reluctance to take extreme measures, in spite of the fact that it has been known for years that their complaints are just and their situation unbearable, how often have our localities and our states squarely faced the situation? How often does a united citizenry rise up and demand not merely that the teachers obtain their rights, but that the children obtain their rights, too, and that the great American tradition that public education is the basis of our well- being be preserved. Why delude ourselves about this obvious indifference to education and to our children's welfare? Why all these hypocritical, national conventions about delinquency? Why these protestations about how much we love our children? The little state of American education and the crass disregard for childhood which it implies constitute just one more proof that what we Americans really love most is money. Those crocodile tears we shed over delinquents, those verbalisms in which we indulge at such gatherings are an insincere attempt to rid ourselves of a feeling of guilt and shame. We know what we should do about delinquency. We should have more and better schools everywhere. [Applause] We should have real schools for an industrial age, that are open, if necessary, from 6:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night. If there were any mass sincerity in our attitude to- wards children, at least one of those teachers' strikes would have had public support on the picket line. Or wouldn't a citizenry capable of supporting teachers' strikes, have made such strikes unnecessary? Now, is a teachers' strike just one more strike to be lived through and then settled? Or has it repercussions beyond the area of the two contestants? Let's think for a moment of the effects of such strikes on the minds of the children. What view, what ideas about society and its concern for them do they get? A teachers' strike settled is not a strike liquidated. It has made an indelible impression on pupils, deep if not thought out, as to the conflicting economic and social forces at work in American society. Don't let's imagine that things are better now because temporarily there are no strikes. The teacher and the pupils involved both have acquired an attitude toward the American scene that needs deep consideration. What are we going to do? Just keep things quiet? Or teach some more civics? Doesn't America realize that the school is its life and being? Or are most boards of education made up of men who don't send their children Gknkral Skssions 133 to public schools? Or do they expect college to make up for early neglect? If we don't act and act quickly to strengthen our public-school system, teaching will soon be a depression profession as it was in the WPA nurseries. Well, then, who is going to put education where it belongs? Who is going to hammer it into people's heads that the school can and must compensate the child for the effects of social unrest and for the very general emotional insecurity of home life? Who is going to burn it into the American mind, that five million children go to no school whatsoever? And that at least twelve states cannot afford a decent educational system? The time has come, my friends, for a powerful offensi\e program. The teachers' economic status and the slight raises now handed out by the states is but half the battle. We must use the inequality of educational opportunity, the half empty teachers colleges, the deserted classrooms, as the focus of an active and powerful rebellion. We are failing to take ad- vantage of a strategic moment, unless all of us get behind a definite program for the improvement, expansion, and equalization of the public-school system. As a laymen, I am naturallv diffident about suggesting to you plans and policies. And yet as a layman, I shall mention certain objectives in education that would appeal to the public at large and impress the public with the importance of your mission. In the battle for education, I thin^ popular support will largelv depend on the leadership that will be forthcoming from the boards of education and the administrators. Let us concede that the present lethargy of the public is due in many places to the fact that the schools have done an uneven nnd often a poor job. T am always hearing the slogan "Teach the child and don't teach subiectmatter." Now forty or fifty years aP'o that made sense when John Dewev pointed out that subiectmatter depended on psycho- logical and not on logical organization. You hnve to teach children, to be sure, but you have to teach them something. Are the nn r^nts and people p-enerally convinced that you do teach them somethinf^? For mnnv vear<;. instead of rnicinfr the child's capacity to meet ndpounte e«-indnfd<;. -w^p considered !<■ demorrntic to reduce standards to suit the rnnnritip« of nonrlv trained students. We should hnnjr un a ne-w slofTn in onr schoolrooms rendinp': "There is no democratic rond to learninfT." If nnrents were made to see and appreciate the fundamental value of standards In education, they would get a new respect for it. This failure to insist upon standards of achievement has led to an overemphasis upon eflForts to provide for the slow, the lazy, and the indif- ferent pupils. Yet we are simply lost if we don't do a special well-organized job for the bright and ambitious children. Democracy is spending a great proportion of its total eflFort, whether in education, health, or social work, on its problem cases. If we have special classes for the retarded child, we siiould also have special classes for the bright children. We must help the weak; but we must also help the strong to grow stronger. If we have the 134 American Association of School Administiv^tors future of our country at heart, let us concede that good education for the bright child brings the greatest returns. But in a world such as ours with the ground trembling under our feet, mere efficiency and technics are not going to bring about the best educational results. Today we have to know what is going on in the child's family in order to educate him. The children who come to you today are insecure, confused, frequently unhappy, often just plain hungry, because even the best homes feel the tremblings of the postwar earthquake. If many children are rejected or merely feel rejected at home, it is often not the fault of the parents. Many of them are doing their best under difficult circumstances. Many others, to be sure, are not only inadequate but definitely wish to be rid of their children. You cannot meet such children successfully with nothing but technics. They need sympathy, understanding, and love. With- out an imaginative awareness of the child's emotional difficulties, his natural capacities become inhibited. The teacher whose professional technics are inspired by love of the child is the only good teacher and the only kind of teacher that the world needs today. Let us now consider the trend toward consolidation of small schools which has been going on over the country. What we need today are community-centered schools that stabilize family life and draw the parents as well as the child into the school program. That is why the present tendency toward over-consolidation of the school system is dangerous. It is all very well to let high-school youngsters leave the local scene to go to school. But the elementary school is the heart-beat of the American com- munity where the child gets its first chance to translate the mother rela- tionship into the group relationship. Take it away and community life withers. Yet community life and active participation in community responsi- bilities are the bedrock of democracy. I am not advocating the little red schoolhouse with ten pupils. I am advocating moderation in the consolida- tion of elementary schools. Every sizable village must have its own school. It should have teachers trained to social awareness who will be guide and friend to families overburdened with the problems of readjustment to the complexities of modern life. I know the importance of good local public schools because I had the good fortune to attend a little village school and a public high school. I am grateful for that happy accident. I am quite certain that I would not be here on this platform making this plea were it not for that background. Ours was a small community. Its economic resources were very limited. But that little public school was a first-rate school and the memory of it is the basis of my faith in the vast possibilities of public education. Can every village and town in our country have as good a school? I believe they can. But if our schools are going to improve as rapidly as they should, we shall have to face honestly the economic forces that are involved. The plain fact is that many communities are not willinff to foot the bill and many others are not able to foot the bill. Let us consider the educational setup for a moment. It is a parallel actually of the industrial setup. The boards of education are management General Sessions 135 and control the situation through economic power. The teachers are the workinj^ force. The cards were stacked against the workers in industry until powerful labor unions fought it out with management. Are the boards of education going to show the same reactionary spirit when the fate of this country's future citizens is involved ? Are they going to hide behind the need for economy, when the nation's whole future is at stake? Are they going to force more and more teachers' strikes? It's idle to tell us the money isn't there. Money flows like the Mississippi when war threatens the nation. ^V^ell, education is another war, the only constructive war any nation can wage. It is war against ignorance, intolerance, disease, ami crime. I don't care what economy-minded Congressmen, taxpayers' associ- ations, or budget departments may present in the way of figures. Twice two certainly makes four, but it can also make catastrophe. The boards of education had better wake up and realize their role in this battle for educa- tion. American management lost its unique position of leadership in industry because it failed to meet its responsibilities toward labor. There is the lesson that boards of education must learn. If they fail to meet the needs of the school and the teachers on a state and local basis, our boards of education are simply inviting federal domination. Now what can the teachers contribute, living as they do with all powerful boards of education and with communities that have no respect for them? To some extent, they have joined labor unions. I think the teachers of the country would have been more powerfully unionized by this time, if their professional organizations had not set up barriers of self-interest, false pride, and lack of courage. Perhaps it isn't polite for a guest of those organizations to be so frank about this situation. But this is perfectly clear. Unless the national professional organizations throw their power behind the teachers in this battle for survival, the CIO and the AF of L will take away the chief reason for their existence. The time has passed when teachers are going to act like mice and pretend that labor union tactics are beneath their dignity. Unless somebody does the fighting for them and is quick about it, they are going to do their own fighting. Don't let's blink the issue. The teachers fighthig for a living ivage are oho fighting for the survival of public education. And if they have to fight alone, the only course left them will be to strike from one end of this country to the other. No legislation, however stringent, can possibly stop them. I ask in all fairness, is this the psychological moment for antistrike legislation? And where do you administrators stand? You are torn between a double loyalty, a managerial loyalty to the board of education, and a professional loyalty to the teachers. It is a difficult position whose conflicts are apt to make for passivity. Moreover, it is my experience that many of the most influential school administrators come from Avcll-to-do communities. Their point of view is conditioned too much by the well-equipped schools where their abilities got ever\' chance to develop and which they now administer. To what extent, may I ask, is equalized education throughout the nation one of their primar> concerns? Or are they mainly preoccupied with what is going on in nice schools in nice communities? 136 American Association or School Administrators Not only the teachers but the public must look to your national organi- zations for leadership. I said the strategic time is here. For the first time there is a growing nationwide concern about this problem of education. National magazines and newspapers are picturing in series of articles not merely their own local situation but the situation the country over. There never was a better time not merely for solving current difficulties but for bringing about basic changes that will make possible a systematic program of continuous betterment. But I know the struggle will be a real battle. As I wandered about this country I found that the self-satisfaction of fat and prosperous subur- bia is the Achilles heel of democracy. Let me tell you just one war experi- ence which was repeated in various forms all over the country. A bright and shiny New England suburb suddenly found a trailer colony of over four hundred war workers' families at its very doorsteps. The school in that community was one of those modern marvels of light, space, and equipment. It was so new and beautiful and expensive that the suburban mothers wouldn't let the poor trailer kids use it. Without the legal right to exclude them, they were excluded and waded around in the mud and slush of their trailer alleys for one whole year with nothing to do. Then the federal gov- ernment stepped in and built them a temporary school. These women justi- fied themselves to me by saying: "Our children and those trailer children have nothing in common." "Nothing but the future of USA," was my reply. But it made no dent on their self-righteousness. There it seems to me is your job — to make your well-to-do PTA's not only community-minded, but state-minded and nation-minded as to the functions of education in democracy. [Applause] An equalized system of education is our only chance to give all talented children a chance to rise to the top and to keep the social structure fluid. If we become even more stratified than we are now, democracy, before rigor mortis sets in, will be rent by class con- flicts. And you who function in these prosperous towns and cities and states will not escape the repercussions of revolt. Is it not obvious, therefore, that the school administrators must fight actively and without delay for the expansion and equalization of our public-school system? We all know that equalization of education cannot be accomplished on a nationwide basis without federal aid to the less prosperous states. But just as those suburban mothers were willing to sacrifice the welfare of the trailer children, just as many boards of education forced their teachers to strike because they would not pay them a decent salary, just so the wealthy states have always balked at sharing the expense for the education of the children who had the misfortune to be born in our less prosperous areas. The people and the political representatives of our well-to-do states must now make up their minds where they stand on this issue of federal aid. Senator Taft with three other Republican and four Democratic Sena- tors have introduced the soundest piece of bipartisan legislation — S472 — for federal aid to education that has ever been presented to the Congress. The bill rigorously defends the Independence of state administration of these funds, demanding only that there be no discrimination in their use against General Sessions 137 the children ef minority racial groups. It provides variable grants computed mathematically on the a\era'. The European con- tinent and Asia are threatened with mass starvation in the early spring. Britain is reeling under the hammer-blows of destiny. The whole world looks to us for salvation. It literally yearns for leadership from us not only in the field of economics but no less for moral leadership. In fact, economics and morals have suddenly become one and the same thing in a world brought to the verge of ruin by a crass materialism that ignored human values. Leadership of so complex and exalted a nature can be furnished 140 American Association of School Administrators by our country in the years to come only if we have a people capable of understanding that the future of humanity is at stake. "God expects the impossible of his creatures," said Dostoevsky. Truly God expects the impossible of us today. We Americans are each and every- one of us being weighed in the scales of humanity to see what we are worth. Of no group is that more true than of you who know that democracy and education are synonymous. To strengthen the one we must strengthen the other. If we are conscientious, there can be no peace for you and me as long as we live. The battle for full equality of opportunity in education will not be won within our times, but this is the propitious, the historical moment to begin a strong offensive, and we dare not rest until we have done our utmost to bring to all of our people the light and life which result from free development and self-fulfilment. There lies the source of a rejuvenated America; there lies the hope that we shall be able and willing to do the impossible for God, for country, and for this suffering world. I thank you. 'te AMERICA'S EDUCATIONAL DILEMMA JAMES B. CONANT, PRESIDENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS President Hill : I believe our second speaker needs no introduction to any educated audience. In the place of his nativity and his present environment it may be noted that there is no written record of what the Lowells said to the Cabots or, in turn, what the Cabots said to God, but I would rather venture to hazard that public education was rarely on the agenda. By contrast, one of Dr. Conant's claims to fame, and the one I shall mention this evening, is that he does talk to people about the problems of public education, and I hope he mentions them to the Lord also occa- sionally. At any rate, he has an awareness of public education too infre- quently found in university presidents. It is therefore a real pleasure to present him to this audience of school administrators. His subject, "Amer- ica's Educational Dilemma." Dr. Conant. Dr. Conant: President Hill, Mrs. Meyer, Ladies, and Gentlemen: There are obviously many angles from which one may view the American educational scene. At this moment I should imagine that all thinking citizens must be concerned with the present crisis in public education to which Mrs. Meyer has addressed her forceful and eloquent remarks. This crisis has been caused by the shortage of adequate schoolteachers, which in turn reflects the shocking situation in regard to teachers' salaries. Public opinion, I trust, is in the process of being awakened to this immediate issue, and there is no need for me tonight to stress to this audience the fact that we must spend a very much larger proportion of our public money on our public schools. If I were addressing an audience of laymen, I should only emphasize that point and the importance of our public schools and stress again the imperative need for their support ; but for the purposes of CiENERAi, Sessions 141 this talk tonight to you ladies and gentlemen, 1 :im going to examine our puhlic schools from a somewhat more critical angle, an angle which brings into prominence, I believe, a certain dilemma inherent in our unique system of public education. I use the word "unique" advisedly, for I think it can be demonstrated that the public schools in the United States represent a system which the world has never seen before. 1 do not refer primarily to the size of the undertaking or to the fact that for a generation we have had imiversal education or something approaching it through the first eight grades. 1 refer, rather, to the large numbers of our youth who now go to high school and beyond, and the lack of differentiation in our schooling. How significant is this latter point is brought out by some recent com- ments of the Lhiited States educational mission which recently returned from a visit to Germany. They found the basic educational system of Germany had been little modified by the Nazis, although the machinery had been captured by them to promote their totalitarian ends. But the fundamental structure of the German school system long before the Nazis reflected a spirit which differed from that which prevails in American schools. It was based on the philosophy of a class structure. It was the antithesis of our system which reflects the spirit of a democracy committed to the idea of equal opportunity for all. Rut let me quote from the report of the mission to which 1 just referred, the mission which studied the German schools within the American zone of occupation. Speaking of the need for the development of the idea of the school as a primary agency for the democratization of Germany, the commission said : "This concept has not inspired the schools in the past [and they meant the entire past, not just the period of Nazi rule]. Very early, in fact at the end of the fourth year, the school has hitherto been a dual system, one for the 5 or 10 percent of intellectually, socially, and economically favored who go on to secondary school, university, and the professions; the other for the great group who have four years more of tuition-free elementary school and three or more years of vocational training. When he is ten years of age or younger, a child finds himself grouped or classified by factors over which he has no control ; such grouping to determine almost inevitably his status throughout life. This systen> has cultivated attitudes of superiority in one small group and of inferiority in the majority of the members of (lerman society, making possible the submission and lack of self-determina- tion upon which authoritarian leadership has thrived." I think it fair to say that the system our educational mission found in Germany is not unrepresentative of the basic educational philosophy of all European nations in the last one hundred years. There is no need to point out to this audience of school administrators the difference between such an educational philosophy and our own. With us there is little or no differ- entiation in education even in regard to curriculum until the fourteenth year is reached, and rarely any differentiation in actual schools until the high-school \cars arc past; M'hereas in Germany the elite are separated 142 American Association of School Administrators from the others at the age of ten. Our system is a democratic one; the other has the inherent faults the mission has pointed out. If we were to examine the matter no further, we might swell our chests with patriotic pride and pat ourselves on the back and let it go at that, or at least try only to remedy the situation in regard to the supply of teachers and to increase their totally inadequate pay. But let us tonight, as educators, examine the situation further. If we do, I believe we must admit frankly that we pay a price for our undifferentiated system of public education. We pay a price for the fundamental democracy of our undif- ferentiated school system. Personally, I think it is a price well worth paying if it is necessary, but I am going to suggest that if we are wise, the price need not be as high as it is at the present moment. Let us admit that to some degree our high schools are not satisfying the demands for certain sections of the population, IMrs. Meyer has already referred to that point several times in her address. If you want to hear eloquent evidence on this point, talk to certain professors on almost any campus. The complaints against our public high schools that I have heard have been quite as vigorous in the West as in the East, and at least as persistent among faculty members of state universities as in the endowed colleges. What are the complaints? You ladies and gentlemen know them well. They are that the bright boy or girl gets a totally inadequate preparation for college work. By this the professor usually means, to be sure, not enough foreign languages, not even enough mathematics. The one complaint comes usually from one group of college men, the other from a different academic quarter, but they do not cancel out. Rather, they speak together loud and long, and they both speak also of insufficient mental workout and the lack of intellectual stimulation in many of our schools. These criticisms of the high schools are usually coupled with blasts against the members of the faculty of education in the university. At their doors quite as much as at the doors of the schoolteachers and principals is placed the major share of blame. A few years ago at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Teachers College, I ventured to comment on the recriminations which were common on most university campuses, and I asked for a truce among educators. I suggested that the charges and countercharges between professional educators and professors of the arts and sciences cease, and to that end I put forth a program which I shall venture to rephrase here tonight. Let the college and university people — that is, the professors of the arts and sciences — become better acquainted with the problems facing the public schools today. Let them admit that the provision of an adequate education for those who are not going on to a four-year college is at least as important as the pre-college preparatory work. If this is admitted and the situation is examined with candor, I believe the conclusion is inevitable that the public schools by and large are to be congratulated on what has been accomplished in the last few decades. On the other hand, let the teachers in our high schools, the administrators, Generai, Sessions 14.? and their allies in the universities — the professors of education — examine more critically the problem of recruiting and training talent for the pro- fessions. If this is done, I believe it will be found that much remains to be accomplished in the high school. Guidance and counseling must be vastly improved, particularly for the boy and girl with high scholastic aptitude. A greater degree of motivation is needed for the promising material for the professions, irrespective of geographical location of the school and of the family income. In many, many schools much better formal instruction should be given to those who have the capacity and ambition to proceed to the universities for their post-high-school work. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating any return to the old college preparatory course of a generation or so ago, but I am advo- cating greater intellectual pace and keener competition among those who are headed for our colleges. I am also advocating for this group what many high schools now provide, at least three years of hard work in mathematics, preferably four, and two or three years of one foreign language, and of course as skilful teaching as can be found in the use of the English language. All this, it seems to me, could be accomplished for a college group without interfering with the development of a common core of general studies for the entire school. ^Vithout diminishing our efforts to improve the general and vocational training of those who are not going to be professional men and women, we ought to be able to do much better in building a solid foundation for subsequent university work. Some of you may say that in the part of the country you come from there is no quarrel between the high school and the college. If so, I think teachers and professors from many other sections should come to visit you to see how the lion and the Iamb lie down together. You know that story of the exhibit in London many years ago, the lion and the lamb in the same cage. It was put forward in behalf of world peace, and teachers were asked to bring their children to see this exhibit of mutual love and affection in the animal kingdom. One of the teachers took the curator aside and said, "It is marvelous, but, frankly, how do you arrange to have a lion and a lamb lie down together in the same cage?" The curator said, "Well, to be perfectly frank, every now and then we must renew the lamb." [Laughter] If what I have been saying strikes a responsive chord in any of your breasts, you will better understand what I meant at the outset in referring to the dilemma inherent in our American public schools. The dilemma is this: The nation needs the special talent of each generation to be selected and thoroughly educated for those professions which require long academic training. We must have the best doctors, public health specialists, law^^ers, economists, scientists, engineers, to mention the outstanding examples. With an eye to these callings only, there is much to be said for the European system on purely pedagogic grounds. If the future members of the pro- fessions are segregated at the age of ten and given an education directed toward this ultimate goal, that is, entry into a learned profession, the best results intellectually can be obtained. \'et such a system is highly un- democratic, and it is contrary to our basic American philosophy; hence the 144 American Association of School Administrators dilemma of which I speak. Furthermore, unless the selection of the boys and girls to be thus educated were made on the grounds of intellectual promise and irrespective of the accidents of geography and birth, much talent would be lost to the professions. This has undoubtedly occurred throughout modern European history, and even in Great Britain, where generous scholarships somewhat mitigate an essentially European system. To be sure, in some localities in the United States we do have a dual system not unlike that of Germany. In a few localities, suburban areas with a high income group in residence, the high school is a college prepara- tory school and little more. Ninety percent of the students are from families with means and collegiate ambitions. Likewise, there are a few private schools which, like the special suburban high school, are college preparatory schools. I am the last one to criticize either type of school. Education is a local concern, and local conditions often result in a special type of education. Indeed, to some degree the increase in the number of private schools in any locality may be a measure of the failure of the public school to make adequate provision for the pre-university training of those destined for the professions. But, as you gentlemen know better than I, numerically the number of schools where anything like 90 percent of the students for social, economic, or intellectual reasons plan to attend a four-year liberal arts college or stiff engineering school is very small. Before the war the over-all figures for the United States, let me remind you, were as follows: Of every 1000 pupils enrolled in the fifth grade, 770 entered high school and 417 were graduated. Of this 417 only 146 (about 35 percent) entered college, and of this number only about half completed the college course. Let me consider for the moment an area in this country where these average figures might hold. A series of high schools, let us say, of the average type where only a third of the students go on for further education. As I see it, a series of important problems needs to be solved in such localities. First, how can the school through wise guidance and counseling see to it that the percent who go on to college are those who really will benefit from the college? Second, how can this group receive a better preparation for college without endangering the democratic nature of the school, on the one hand, or jeopardizing their general education for citizenship, on the other? (Let me remind you, it is not only a question of the content of the courses in the high school, but the intellectual pace. There is no doubt that we lose a lot of promising material for the professions because of inadequate high-school education.) Third, what type of college should be provided for those who should have an education beyond the high school mvay from home? How will their education be financed if family incomes are rela- tively low? These are vital problems which require the attention, I believe, not only of schoolteachers and administrators, college and university men, but of intelligent citizens concerned with the welfare of this country. If they can be solved we may eliminate to a large degree the dilemma inherent in our American system of education. May I (Ir\el()p for a inomrnt my third (Hirstion, ^Vh;U t\pr of coUrgc General Sessions 145 should be provided for those who are to pursue their formal studies beyond hifjh school ? This is a question which must be answered in terms of the local conditions in each state or even each town or city. Of this much w^e may be sure: The need to answer this question is going to be very pressing in the years ahead. As everyone is saying nowadays, education is contagious. Some two million veterans are receiving an advanced education with the aid of what amounts to a vast federal scholarship plan. Their younger relatives, to a considerable degree, will want the same opportunities. In all likelihood, there will be a pressure to increase the educational facilities beyond the high school. How is this to be done? What sort of facilities are to be ofifered ? In our thinking about this whole subject, I suggest we would do well to distinguish between general education (for broadening a man's horizon), vocational education, and professional education. Beyond the high school, \ocational and general education can be provided locally in two-year terminal institutions, and for many students this seems to be the answer. I refer you to Education for All American Youth. The expansion of these local two-year terminal colleges seems to be of great importance for the immediate future of the country. Professional education and the general education of professional men is a function of the four-year colleges and universities. The provision for general education and vocational education, I believe, is primarily a responsibility of the state. Yet the local taxpayers' money in many states might well be supplemented by federal aid, as Mrs. Meyer has so forcefully brought out tonight, and this can be accomplished by general federal aid for education such as is provided by the Hill-Thomas-Taft Rill, which I certainly hope may be passed by this Congress. On the other hand, training for the professions is a more national concern. The pro- fessions transcend state boundaries ; therefore, professional education might well be financed by the federal government to a considerable degree by a direct scholarship or fellowship program. This is one of the features of the proposed National Science Foundation. In this case only the scientific pro- fessions are specified, but to my mind medicine should eventually be in- cluded. Indeed, the case for a federal scholarship program for premedical and medical s«-udents is xery strong. You may ask why not other professions as well. I would have no objection to enlarging the list, but we must make haste slowl\- in these matters, and a few selected professions might well be tried first as a sort of pilot plant operation. In short, I envisage public moneys, both state and federal, being used to meet the educational demands of the next decade somewhat as follows: (a) Improve our public-school system by federal aid to the states without federal control, (b) Expand and improve those institutions which provide a terminal two-year post-high-school education locall\'. (c) Institute a federally financed scholarship program somewhat analogous to the new NRO rC program, but this program for scientists and engineers and, at the start, for premedical and medical students, l^he terminal two-\ear college would offer, of course, both vocational training and general educa- 146 American Association of School Administrators tion much as our four-year liberal arts colleges, whether within or without a university, offer the first stage of professional education and general education. To sum up, my argument runs as follows : The dilemma of American education which is inherent in our desire to give a general education for all American youth and a specialized • professional education for a certain selected few is not insoluble. By a series of successive approximations, so to speak, we may hope to accommodate the two tasks the one to the other. In some localities it is the general education for all American youth that needs to be strengthened ; in others it is the selection, guidance, and special education of future professional men. By and large I suspect, however, the emphasis in most high schools should be on giving more languages and mathematics to those particular boys and girls who are potential university material. We live in a highly technical age that needs many able pro- fessional men with the very best training, which cannot possibly begin too young. We likewise need a citizenry that has character backed by knowl- edge, knowledge sufficient to meet the exigencies of the modern world. But of one thing we may be sure, as never before, education is a matter of vital concern for the future of this republic. This dilemma must be solved. In conclusion, I should like to take just a few minutes more of your time to say a word or two about a subject only distantly related to the topic of my talk; only distantly related, yet in a sense intimately associated with the future of our educational plan. I refer to the fact that we are living in a period when the American people have not yet accustomed themselves to the fact that modern science has given us not only health and luxury, but a unique weapon of war, the atomic bomb. The fact that this new weapon appears to hang over our industrial civilization like a sword of Damocles has led many worthy people to seek refuge from the present and the future by various methods of escape — hysterical fear on the one hand or foolish complacency on the other. What we must find, and find through education, it seems to me, is courage to face the facts. We must learn to react maturely to the grave problems of the present. We must learn to live in what some people have called "The Atomic Age." May I illustrate what I have in mind by saying a word or two of a very personal nature about my own experience. As I watched the secret development of the atomic bomb during the four years of war, it happened that I had the privilege likewise of knowing of the work of the chemists and physicians and surgeons operating on the Research Committee on Medicine. I knew of their new discoveries in penicillin, DDT, and blood plasma, and I realized how much they promised for the future health and welfare of all the people of the world. As I compared the grim task of building an atomic bomb with the work of the Research Committee on Medicine, I often thought of Emerson's famous essay. Compensation. In the early days of the work on atomic energy, you know, there was a possibility that the conscience of nature would be such that atomic energy General Sessions 147 for power would be possible but an atomic explosive impossible; that is, the rate of burning of those nuclear fuels might turn out to be not fast enough to give an effective military weapon. We all hoped this would be the case, although the probabilities were very slight. In fact, I often thought, in that uncertain period when we were waiting for the experimental result, that this would be too good to be true. The universe just isn't built that way. So it turned out in fact that science and its application, which have given us marvelous drugs, ways of health, methods of communication undreamed of by our ancestors, transportation, and luxuries of every sort, have also given us the atomic bomb. The discovery of it was inevitable in a scientific age. Only the timing was uncertain. I think it can be demonstrated beyond question of doubt that the timing was most fortunate for the democracies of the world. Perhaps even at the risk of seeming unduly provincial as a New Eng- lander, I may conclude by quoting Emerson on Compensation. He wrote: "Every excess causes a defect ; every defect an excess . . . With every influx of light comes new danger . . . There is a crack in everything God has made. It would seem there is always this vindictive circumstance stealing in at unawares — this back-stroke, this kick of the gun, certifying that the law is fatal, that in nature nothing can be given, all things are sold." If, following Emerson, we think of the potential power of destruction of the atomic bomb as the price we pay for health and comfort in this scientific age, we can perhaps more coolly face the task of making the best of an inevitable bargain, however hard. The United States has put forward a reasonable plan for the inter- national control of the new weapon, and for the present we must wait with patience while this proposal is explored by the United Nations. When we despair of delay, we would do well to remember that a new international order, like Rome, is not built in a day. Dismal as will be the outlook if these negotiations fail, if they succeed we may well be launched on a new era of peace for all mankind. Remembering that Emerson warned that the doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of indifference, we can start walking boldly along the tight rope of the atomic age. ">>* "^^ President Hill presents alburn and car to Mr. and Mrs. Shankland while Mr. Schaeffer of Atlantic City looks on PRESENTATION OF AUTOMOBILE TO SHERWOOD DODGE SHANKLAND. SECRETARY EMERITUS, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS President Hili, : Now we come to one of the very pleasant moments on our program, the presentation of the illuminated album to Sherwood D. Shankland, Secretary Emeritus of the American Association of School Administrators. To hear what I have to say and to receive the album, I am going to ask Mr. and Mrs. Shankland to come forward at this time. [Applause] It was in 1923, in Cleveland, Ohio, that I first met S. D. Shankland, at that time the new Executive Secretary of our Department of Superin- tendence, as was its old name. It was my first year of attendance. An acute case of sinus infection had put me in bed most of the convention, so it was Friday morning when I went to see Mr. Shankland to get my railroad tickets validated, as had to be done in those days. Exhibits were being dis- mantled, and I can still remember climbing around between the lumber and the boxes in order to get to him. Well, he validated the tickets quickly and efficiently, as he has always done, and that was that. It was fourteen years later, sir, at the convention in New Orleans that you met me. I am sure that I do not have to go through any laborious ex- planation of the difference between my meeting him and his meeting me. L 148 J General Sessions 149 There were fourteen years of difference and, for him, some 700,000 miles of travel. But from that time on he was my very good friend. S. D. has had an immense capacity for being a good friend to a lot of dif- ferent individuals. The circle of his friends is a good-sized corporation in itself. He has been and is the friend of hundreds of you. In my opinion, not one of his contributions to our Association is greater than this friendship he has shown to as many as it is possible for him to see and know. So, hundreds of his friends in every state in the Union and the District of Columbia have contributed small amounts in order to present a gift to their first Executive Secretary. For them it is my privilege to present this illuminated album which reads as follows: (See page 150.) That is the end of the quotation, and now in conclusion, S. D., I take great pleasure in giving you this album and the keys to the car presented by individual members of the American Association of School Admin- istrators from every state in the Union. In it you will find gadgets for your comfort, cigars for smoking, and road maps to guide you in visiting us during the years ahead. There are two sets of keys. [Applause] (The automobile was then driven onto the stage.) Mr. Shankland: Mr. President, I had a right good little speech that I had thought out when I thought you were just going to give me an album. I have seen automobiles presented to professional ball players, but I can't remember what they said. [Laughter] 1 have thousands of friends among the school administrators of the United States. They have been most gracious to me. Together we have fought in a common cause, sometimes with bare knuckles and a reasonable amount of unseemly conversation. The battle for education can't be fought, Dr. Conant, altogether with Emerson's language. [Laughter] It takes clubs. Sometimes you have got to give them the works. Now, Mr. President, for this remarkable gift which my associates have seen fit to give to me and which I feel I do not deserve, I want Mrs. Shankland to join me in thanking the Association for the gift and you, Mr. President,* for the gracious words. [Applause] The members oj the AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS on March 5, 1947 honor their first Executii'e Secretary, SHERWOOD DODGE SHANKLAND For his quarter century of service to American educa- tion and for his faithful performance of services "over and beyond the call of duty." For his clear decisions, his willingness to accept in full and discharge the duties of his office, his tough resiliency in the face of doubts and difficulties, his thoughtfulness, his willing- ness to be father confessor to our professional sins and ques- tions, his hearty and frequent laughter, and his camaraderie — we present this testimonial as a citation of honor and dis- tinction. As a bond of affection and personal and professional esteem, hundreds of members from every state in the Union have contributed to provide an automobile which is presented to him and his faithful life partner, Mrs. Shankland, at the evening program of the Association in Atlantic City in the convention hall before an audience of thousands. In keeping with accepted principles of safety, the keys to the car are presented Mrs. Sherwood Dodge Shankland, with a directive she shall be pilot-in-chief. Today we honor the sturdiest messenger of education who ever rode an upper pullman, rough-riding fighter for the boys and girls of America — S. D. Shankland. At the Atlantic City Convention on March 5, 1947 J members of the American Associa- tion of School Administrators presented Secretary Emeritus S. D. Shankland with an automobile. Above is the zuording of the illu- minated album ivhich accompanied the gift. NINTH GENERAL SESSION Thursday Morning, March 6, 1947 PRESENTATION OF PAST-PRESIDENT'S KEY TO HENRY H. HILL HOMER W. ANDERSON, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS ]P\jR. Worth AIcClure (Executive Secretary, American Association of ^^^ School Administrators): Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen: As a matter of special privilege I request that I may present one of our past- presidents who has a particularly happy assignment from the Executive Committee of the American Association of School Administrators. I now present to you Homer W. Anderson, Superintendent of Schools of New- ton, Massachusetts. Dr. Anderson. Dr. Anderson: Mr. Secretary, Dr. Hill, Guests, and Members of the American Association of School Administrators: Henry Hill, will 3'ou stand up, please. I have a twofold duty to perform today, and both of them are very pleasant. First I want to tell you what all of us have tried to tell you by our applause, that this has been an outstanding program of the Associa- tion. As a matter of fact, I think that out there they are absolutely unani- mous that this is the best national meeting we have had since 1942.^ [Laughter, applause] I am the only one who challenges that just slightly, because I am the only one who knows how good the 1943 convention would have been if it had met. It is just like old times, except just a little better, Henry. We have been enjoying every part of this program. Throughout the years you have served us in a businesslike, gentlemanly, kindly way. We want you to know how we appreciate what you have done for the Association during this year. Of course, I need not say that I am very proud of what you have done because I have worked with you on various assignments. First you were my taskmaster on the yearbook. Then I got a little revenge on you and was a taskmaster of yours for about six months. As a matter of fact, I gave you the indoctrination for a large city superintendency. So I knew you would do just the kind of job you have done. The second thing I want to do now. All that I have done so far has been along purely democratic lines. Now I am going to depart from the demo- cratic, and I am going to admit you to one of the exclusive associations in the United States of America. As a token of that membership in the Past- Presidents of the American Association, I have the honor to present to you, in behalf of the Association and the Executive Committee, the Past-Presi- dent's Key, which I know that you will wear with honor to yourself and with credit to the profession. I congratulate you on a brilliant career as President of the Association, and here is the key. [Applause] ^ Because of the war, no national meeting bad been held since 1942. I 151 J 152 American Association of School Administrators President Hill: Homer, I don't know anybody I would rather receive that Key from than you. Whatever merit there may be in this program, I think your appraisal is accurate that it is the best since 1942. All of you would have been delighted with most any program. Whatever credit there is belongs to the Executive Committee and to you for your suggestions from the field. Particularly it is pleasant to receive this from Homer Anderson, who was the superintendent of schools in St. Louis when I was his roving ambassador out there. A fellow who has had as much chance to learn from able persons as I have ought to be able, to pick up a little bit now and then. I am sure it has been a happy pleasure, albeit a strenuous one, to serve this year as j'our President. [Applause] BUILDING UNITY THROUGH UNDERSTANDING ETHEL J. ALPENFELS, STAFF ANTHROPOLOGIST, BUREAU FOR INTERCUL- TURAL education, new YORK, NEW YORK; MEMBER OF FACULTY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY President Hill: This program has been planned as much as possible to present by some outstanding individual dififerent facets of the areas that impinge upon school administration. It has been our feeling that superin- tendents need not only discussion of the immediate problems of their craf*- through discussion groups and lobby sessions and everywhere else, but certain broad orientations toward humanity in general, towards the prob- lems of taxation, the problems of intergroup relationships, and so on. I think our speaker this morning was demanded by popular request about as much as any person who has yet appeared on the program. I am very happy to present, without giving all of her claims to fame, our first speaker on this morning's program. As I said, in building this program we wanted someone who could speak with authority and perhaps some pleasantness on the broad question of intercultural education. I have one just slightly private peeve against some of our reformers and do-gooders, that they manage to be a little bit unnecessarily unpleasant about it. We thought we could get that at home, you know. Plenty of people can reform us or try to do it in that particular way, but we thought we ought to have someone who was not only pleasant to look at but pleasant to hear. Our speaker. Dr. Alpenfels, has been well received before very many education groups throughout the nation, and it is a very great pleasure and honor to present her to you at this time. Her subject: "Building Unity through Understanding." Dr. Alpenfels. Dr. Alpenfels: Members of the American Association of School Ad- ministrators: I am going to speak today on the problems of intergroup edu- cation from the point of view of an anthropologist. Over the last six or seven years, as I have had a chance to visit your schools and talk to the assemblies, it has been great fun to find out what your students think of anthropologists and of the work that we do. Usually when I am introduced in a high-school assembly, everyone slides down on his spine, sort of moans and looks at one another and says, "Anthropology — what's that?" I think we ought to change the name of anthropology to simply "What's that?" GeniiRai. Sessions 153 There is another feeling about anthropology, and the best way I can ex- plain it is to give you a definition. During the early days of the war in all the small colleges around the United States we had the Army and the Navy and the Air Corps men, and when my first fifty young Air Corps men walked into my class and saw they were going to have a woman teaching the course and that it was going to be anthropology instead of an interesting subject like meteorology, you know the look that went over the faces of all of those young men. Being a teacher, I did what teachers always do when they get that sort of look the first day of school. I gave them a test [laughter] and asked them what they thought anthropology was. Every last one of those fifty young men wrote somewhere on their papers that anthropology was the study of apes. But there was one young man sitting on the side of my class whom I spotted right away. I looked up the definition he gave. He said, "Anthropology is the study of how man sprang from the apes — but women sprang farther and men have been trying to catch them ever since." It seems that a speech this morning on building unity through under- standing might as well begin with apes as anything else, because, as you know, anthropology stems directly from Charles Darwin, for Charles Darwin first popularized the theory of human evolution as a single straight line. At the bottom he placed the ape, and at the top the white man, the European, the Englishman, because Darwin was an Englishman. As early colonists went out from Europe and as early explorers discovered for the first time the brown-skinned peoples of Malaysia and the so-called red- skinned peoples of the New World, they went back to Europe and placed all people on a sort of racial stepladder. At the bottom they placed the ape, and at the top the white man, and all the rest went somewhere in between. Over the last seventy years since Darwin's time a myth has grown up which says that one group of people are only just a little lower than the angels, another just a little higher than the apes. Since, you know, scientists cannot get angels into laboratories, we had to be satisfied with looking only at the apes, and if you will pay an unbiased visit to your local zoo and push back the hair of at least two of our higher apes, you will find they have pink or white skin, and the ape is hairy. The white race is the hairiest of all the races of mankind. The ape has thin lips and a thin nose structure, and the white race has the thinnest lips and the thinnest noses in the world. The ape has small ears and he has short legs, and the white race has the smallest ears and the shortest legs. If you want me to, I will go on and give you thirty-five traits in which it is the white race that looks most like the ape. If we are to believe our myth, then we must say it is the white race that is least capable of being educated, but you know that is nonsense. It is nonsense to say that any group of people looks more like the ape than any other, for science no longer says that man has descended from the ape. We say, instead, that ape and man have a com- mon ancestry. I need not point out to you the subtle difference of that. Now, instead of thinking of your grandmother in direct line of the ape, it is your cousin, and you can decide with your wives and husbands on which side of the family tree you want to place him. [Laughter] 154 American Association of School Administrators The reason I tell j^ou that in a talk like this is merely to point out that those things which you can look at, and which you know are right because you can see them, are the ones most likely to be wrong. So, six years ago when for the first time I spoke to a high-school assembly, what I expected to tell and what I expected the students to be interested in proved to be entirely wrong. I remember that it was in a high school in Mil- waukee. Since I had never spoken to a high-school group before, I wrote a beautiful fifteen-minute talk and stood up in front of those students and read every last word of it. When I had finished, the principal looked at me in amazement and said, "You are not going to stop now, are you? Our period lasts fifty minutes. The teachers knew you were coming, so they have a teachers' meeting at the side. They are not here. None of the students wants to go to their seventh hour classes. Won't you answer questions?" I had never answered questions for high-school people, so I felt fully qualified and said, yes, I would. I went home that night and looked up the answers to all of the questions those high-school students asked me, because I had told them what I as an anthropologist thought they ought to know about the problems of intergroup education, and apparently I hadn't told them a single thing they really wanted to know. When I look back on it now, I think I had all the right answers to all the wrong questions. Those of us who were being invited by school superintendents and principals to speak in the schools decided that if we were going to do a job we had better find out what your young people really wanted to know. So, we began to collect questions. In two j'^ears we collected seven thousand questions, and then we decided it was about time to look at them. When we did we found that all seven thousand questions could be grouped into fifty categories. There are only about fifty questions that young people in the United States ask about people of other races and of other religious groups. A group of us said, what would happen if we set up a course based on these fifty questions? Could we answer the question that many people ask today: Of what value are facts and textbooks in teaching understanding among people? We decided to set up the course and for a year and a half taught it in four different fields outside Chicago. I thought that today I might use as my frame of reference that course to tell you a few of the things we taught but, most important of all, to tell you a few of the things we learned. I think it might be well to tell you one or two of the questions so you will know why it is that we have to look up the answers. The question today that leads all the rest in the United States from the third grade through college level is this one: "Is it true that if you have a drop of Negro blood, you are going to have a little black baby in an otherwise lily-white family?" No high-school student, of course, ever asks it that way. They always say to me, "In the little town in which I used to live there was a woman who lived across the street from us, and we all thought she was white. One day she had a black baby. Could that possibly happen?" Your students asked that question seven hundred times out of the seven thousand questions. Ghnerai, Sessions 1 vS Those of us in the field of the biological sciences say we haven't done a job if that is what young people think, in America today, for we know that on the basis of IMendel's law there can be no throwback greater than three generations, and that will occur only once in three billion times. Today in the United States every year sociologists tell us that twenty thousand Negroes move their places of residence and enter into the white race and either work beside them or marry into the white race. If they can pass and if you think of them as white even though they have one-quarter of Negro mixture, their children can be no darker than either of the two parents. What I always want to tell the young people is, whenever they hear the myth of the little black baby in the lily-white family, either the nurse mixed up the babies in the hospital or the woman mixed up her husbands. [Laughter] We could go on and take more of those questions, but we decided to take these fifty questions and for six months to teach the answers to them. Would we change the attitudes of young people? We did that, and when I look back on my class today I think I had a cross section of America, for I had representatives of all three of the great races, I had fortj'^-seven different nationality groups, and I had so many different religious sects and denomi- nations that I said if I went to a different church every Sunday for fifty-two Sundays I would find one or more of my students in each of those churches. What did we teach ? One of the units was on the origin and development of man. It seems to me that the most thrilling adventure story ever pieced together by man himself is the story of our origin and our development. We went back a million years. On the basis of fossil bones, my students traced the history of mankind for a million years. We know that a million years ago man already had knowledge of fire and of crude stone tools, already a beginning of religious life and the beginning of family life. My students found out the most important lesson that science wants to teach today, and that is that a million years ago there were none of the racial differences that you and I now see among the peoples of the world. They asked, "How did these differences come to be?" We tried to tell them what science knows, that a million years ago small groups of people living in the Garden of Eden somewhere in Asia married only within their own kind, and as they did over the thousands of years they developed cer- tain dominant traits like curly hair or straight hair or dark eyes or light eyes. Then these people began to move. We know it because we find the fossil bones of different groups mixed together. Why did they move? Science, of course, can never answer that question. Some people say that it was because the great glaciers pushed down out of Northern Europe and forced these people to move. Some people say it was punishment, that people were forced out of their group. I like to believe it was simply man's incurable curiosity which somehow has always led us on to look for new and better ways of living. Whatever it was, these groups moved and met new groups, and new traits were set up. The process that is most difficult is that process you are reading about so much in the newspapers today, the process known as mutation. The scien- 156 American Association of School Administrators tists are studying the results of the atomic bomb on the people of Japan, those people at Hiroshima. They are looking forward within the near future as children are born to those people to seeing human beings who look different from anyone the world has ever seen, as a result of the gamma rays on the bodies and the genes of these people. The best way I know how to illustrate this process of mutation is to tell you a story. When I was teaching in a college in Wisconsin one of the soldiers wrote to three of the women on the faculty and asked us identical questions. Would we please send him pictures of ourselves? Not just a front view picture, but a full length side view picture. That seemed a very de- lightful way to help out the war effort, so we had our pictures taken and sent them. When the war was over, I met the young man who had asked me for my picture, and I asked him what he did with it. He threw back his head and laughed and said, "I will tell you. You remember, I was sta- tioned in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. In the Kalahari Desert water is very scarce, so scarce that natives store it in ostrich shells and hide it around the desert. Oftentimes our American soldiers stood the chance of wandering off and dying from lack of water. The one sure way to get water from these natives was to present them with a picture of an American woman." The Bushmen, Hottentots, cannot understand why you men in America think we are attractive, because we are so straight up and down. If you read Life Magazine three weeks ago you will recall the picture of the Bushmen women who have a little shelf out in back here about eighteen inches. We call it a morphological bustle. How did they get it? Science says if they can answer that, they can answer all the reasons for racial change. What they say is that in the family of a king about five thousand years ago was born a child with this mutation, this little shelf, and since she was in the family of a king, she would be allowed to live; and if she was allowed to live, she would have children, and all of her female children would carry this mutation. Painted on the walls in the Kalahari Desert are pictures of Bushmen women dated by geologists as five thousand years old, and the first women looked like any woman in this audience except that they are shorter than you are and Mongoloid. There in the heart of Africa suddenly this woman appears with a shelf, and after that all the women have it. So, you can understand how in this small group the Bushmen looked at their women, they liked what they saw, and they used what they saw to judge all other women. So, today we say that on the basis of isolation, of outbreeding, and of mutation, most of the racial differences came into being. Our next unit was one on culture, and high-school people aren't very much interested in culture. We had to use every motivation we could. I remember that in one class I took up a copper penny and said to the students, "If America were to be destroyed and all that was left of our civil- ization was a single copper penny, what would you know about the United States?" I had figured out some thirteen things that I would know. My students thought up some thirty-three almost immediately. They said, "We General Sessions 157 ^\•olllcl know \vc liad the kno\\led^c of mctallur{iy. There is wheat on the hack of the pennx'. Ahraham Lincohi's picture is on the front, and he wore clothes." We talked of these inventions. Then one of the boys raised his hand and said, "Yes, but you are talking: as if we in the United States made these inventions, and I just read an article in which it sa\s the United States hasn't made a single great basic invention." You know high-school people. They are not going to take that. They said, "We in the United States have made many great inventions," and one of the boys said, "We have made all of the important ones." They challenged that boy to bring his article and read it. I am sure many of you may know the article. It is called the "One Hundred Per Cent American," by Ralph Linton. I can quote you a few lines to show you how it goes. It starts out that the one hundred percent American gets up in the morn- ing and takes ofi pajamas that were invented in India. Then he looks at the clock, a medieval European invention. Realizing how late it is, he rushes for his bathroom. If ever he stops to think about it at all, he thinks that when he is in his bathroom he is in the presence of the greatest of all American in\entions, but even here foreign influences pursue him, for glass was in- \ented in ancient Egj^pt, tile in the Near East, and the art of enameling on metal came out of the Bronze Age. He washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls, bathes in a bathtub invented by the Romans, and he dries on a Persian towel. Then he shaves, that pagan custom first invented by the heathen priests of ancient Egypt, with a material invented by the Negroes of Madagascar. Then he brushes his teeth, that worst of all foreign elements that came out of Europe only within the last hundred years. So it goes for tw^o and a half pages, but the last paragraph goes like this: But every morning this one hundred percent American opens his newspaper and reads of the danger of allowing foreign influences to come into his country, and he never fails to thank a Hebrew God in an Indo-European language that he is a one hundred percent (decimal system invented by the Greeks) American (from Amerigo \^espucci, Italian geographer). [Applause] High-school people aren't going to take that. I tried it once in Denver, Colorado, at the East Denver High School. I will never try it again, because those students did as my students did; they spent their whole question period challenging that story. The boys said, "Let's look at this. Let's discover about it and find out about this." They mentioned every invention they could. I remember the only one I knew for sure was that the Scottish people invented the macadam road. Well, the search w^is on, a search which led out of my classroom into the library and where I wanted it most of all to go — into the home. After ten days all of my students and most of their parents knew on the basis of their own research that we in the United States had not made a single great basic invention. What \\c have done, instead, is to make great innovations. That is, we have combined and recombined all of the basic inventions, and out of that we have built our ci\ili7ation. 158 American Association of School Administrators One of the boys summed it up best of all. He was one who fought to the very end. He said, "Well, you may be right. We haven't made any great basic inventions, but the United States is the greatest nation in all the world. We are great in science, in technology, and in medicine, and we still can make a basic invention, but it won't lie in technology. All that has already been done. It will lie in the field of human relations, simply that we do what no other nation has ever done, learn that the people of many races and religions can live side by side in peace and in under- standing." As we gave that course we gave them tests. Just to give you an example of one of the tests, we listed twenty-five national groups like the Irish, Scotch, and English, the Japanese and Chinese. Then we gave the students ten positive words like "courageous," "honest," and ten negative words like "cruel," "dishonest." We said to the students, "Put the words under the group that you think they describe." They went to town. They put all the positive words under the nations they liked and all the negative words under the nations they didn't like. They said to me, "Your words aren't strong enough, 'Cruel' isn't strong enough to express what I feel about the Japanese," but because we had chosen these words from essays they had written earlier simply to see what they would do with emotionally toned words when they saw them all alone, we couldn't change them. So, we said, "Underscore any word that isn't strong enough," and some of the boys took their pencils and marked completely through the paper. We scored that test and found what j'ou might imagine we would find. Two nations led all the rest. Number one was the United States, but even better than the United States, in that they were more honest and more hard-working, were the Chinese. When you think what we have taught about China, of all her great respect for family life and her long cultural history, you know why the students chose China. Who were the two worst nations? Here we definitely received a blow. Number one was Japan, but even worse than Japan, in the estimation of the students in Illinois and in Indiana, were the English. They said when this war is over we are going to have to take the English on and settle them. We couldn't understand it. Our soldiers had not yet come back from Europe with their stories of the French and the English, how clean the Germans are, how much like us the Germans are. We began giving them cultural facts. We studied the great Negro uni- versity founded in darkest Africa, in Timbuktu, two thousand years ago, a university so famous that it exchanged professors with Morocco and Cairo and Teheran. Then the students followed the Moors as they were expelled from Spain, who went down into Africa, across the desert, and destroyed that university at Timbuktu ; and they learned of the scholar who was executed by the Moors, who just as he was about to die, said, "I have only one regret, and that is that I haven't saved as many books as some of my friends." When they counted his library, he had sixteen hundred volumes, and that was one thousand years ago, when my ancestors in CjEneral Shssions 159 Sweden and in (jermany were still paintinji their bodies blue and worship- ping before stone altars in the forests. VV^e learned of the people of Asia. We took the Malays, those people whom historians call Vikings to the sun rays, who two thousand years ago set sail from Asia in open canoes and took not only their wives and their children, but every plant and everv animal that we now find in all the islands of the Pacific. We took all groups. We gave them the test again, and this time they used very few of the words, and they underscored none at all. Who were the two best nations? The United States had risen in their estimation as they compared the United States with the rest of the world, but China had dropped. India had taken its place because of what historians now know of India's long cultural history. Who were the two worst nations? Still Japan, still Eng- land, but now of England they said that it is only since 1900 that the English have been so bad. Before that they were all right. Each of you, coming from many places in the United States, may have your own answers to why my children disliked England. I could not explain it, so I studied every social step, every period in the United States. When I came out to the East Coast and studied the ones given in New England and down in the deep South, I found just the opposite. England stands at the very top in the estimation of the people here. Indeed, you might say that the people on the East Coast look toward England for their inspiration. I remember that when I went to school in California and in Washington, we looked the other way toward China and Japan for our inspiration. But I decided that we in Chicago look only to ourselves and the Chicago Tribune for our inspiration. [Laughter] Quickly, what did we teach on race ? We taught what every science today wants to teach, and that is that there are racial differences among the peoples of the world. None of you needs to be a scientist to know that. All you have to do is look around this room and, by the differences in the color of the skin or the slant of the eye or the shape of the nose, you can pick out representatives of these three great races. But science goes one step further, and we say that the differences that I can see as I look at you are also indelibly stamped on the skeleton of each one of you. So, we trained our students to take a bone (any bone, your thigh bone or your shin bone, but of course we prefer to get hold of your skull) and by looking at that, tell you to which one of the three great races you belonged in life, whether you were a man or a woman, and how old you were when you died. For three months we taught our students the age, race, and sex of bones. After we finished, we turned right around and said that all the differ- ences we had taught are the unimportant ones, the superficial ones. How do I tell race from a skull, for example? Well, there are fifty-five ways. There are a few degrees difference here in the angle of the jaw. The eye-sockets of the Mongoloid are almost rectangular in shape ; those , of the Negro are oval ; those of the white man are rounder. On the living we pull out one of your hairs, cut it in half, and put it under a microscope. 160 American Association of School Administrators If your hair comes out round in cross section, we know this is the hair from the head of a Mongoloid, maybe an Indian. If it comes out flat, it is the hair from the head of a Negro. If it comes out oval, it is the hair from the head of a white man. So we go on through some fifty-five traits. Our best trait is the shape of your shin bone, whether your shin bone is flat or slightly rounded. I am sure there is no one in this whole room who knows what shape his shin bone is and, furthermore, I am sure there are not many of you who will really care to know. The reason for that is that no one can see what shape your shin bone is and no one but the anthro- pologist is interested in it. Yet, in determining the race to which you belong, the shape of your shin bone is just as important as the color of your skin, and it makes as little sense to say that a man with a slightly rounded shin bone can write a better book than a man with a flat shin bone as it does to say that a man with one color of skin is less capable of being educated than a man with another color of skin. What we say today is that it is what we see or what we think we see that is important, that in the main traits of our body we are alike. Yet many of you may have sons who were sent abroad and you yourselves may have gone abroad and know how our American soldiers visiting various places around the world began to doubt this. One of the students wrote to me from an island in the Pacific, and he said, "You are all wrong when you say that the eye, ear, and hand of man are everywhere alike." He wrote how he used to spend his leave going down to the edge of that island and standing there watching the natives dive into the water and catch live fish in their hands. He wrote, "These people have the fastest hands; they are the most agile people in the world." If you thought that your lunch today would depend on how much live fish 30U could catch in your hands, 3'ou would know why this young American soldier said this. Yet all of you can think of stories of the Arabs, for example, who had eyes so keen that they could look at a spot of dust a mile away and tell you not only who were coming but almost what size clothes they were wearing and what size shoes they had on — until another myth had grown up, a myth which sa3's that one group of people do have sharper eyes or keener ears than other people. I want to tell you my favorite story of a backwoodsman who was walk- ing along Fifth Avenue one day. Suddenly he stopped his New Yorker friend and said to him, "I hear a cricket." The New Yorker looked at him and laughed and said, "You couldn't possibly hear a cricket in all this roar of traffic on Fifth Avenue." The backwoodsman said, "Oh, yes, I can, and I will show you how." He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dime, held it out and let it drop. The moment that dime hit the pavement everyone within fifty yards turned around to see if it was his dime that had fallen. [Laughter] You and I would not have lieard the cricket, but I am willing to make you a wager we all would have heard the dime, for our ears are tuned to hear dimes. You could match that story with one of your own. I remember the first American Indian group ^^'ith whom I ever worked. General Sessions 161 Afy first informant was an old man ninety-two years old, and >et this old man had eyes so keen that as we used to go out beyond the camp to try to mark the trails the Indians had walked long before the Europeans came, this old man would suddenly stop and point down at the ground. I would see two or three bent blades of grass, but so keen were his eyes that he could tell me the name of the animal that had just gone before him. Or in our great laboratories scientists can look through a microscope and see what looks to me like a single drop of water, but in that drop of water they see a whole new world. What science says today is simply that the hand and ear and eye of mankind are everywhere exactly alike. It is the difference in training that counts. It is that difference over which we become confused. I remember not long ago I decided to study the customs of the world and I thought it would be very easy to find customs that were alike. So, 1 studied the work that we do. I believe that women ought to stay at home and take it easy and the men go out and do the hard work. But the moment I began to look around the world I found that in most places it is exactly the opposite. Among the taboos in India, for example, is that a woman never cooks because men say cooking is too sacred to allow a woman to do. Then you go and study the pagan peoples who live in northern Luzon among the Philippine Islands, and there the woman never cooks. But here it is the women who say, "We have more important things to do then stay home and cook and take care of the children," and we must conclude that there is only one trait, one custom, that is e\Tr\\vherc exactly the same, and that is that women still hear the children. AVhat happens after the children are born differs from place to place. For example, among the Basque people in Spain it is believed that since the woman gives the child its body, the man gives the child its soul, so the moment the child is born the woman gets up and goes about her work and the man goes to bed and lies in state for nine to fourteen days to give the child a good .soul. [Laughter] One of my friends who worked there among the Basque people for fn-c years said that finally she began to think these Basque men were among the most handsome men she had seen outside the United States. She said, "One day I couldn't stand it any longer, and I spotted a Basque man standing across the way with five or six children around him. I turned to the little Basque woman at my side and said, 'My, what a handsome man!' and the Basque woman looked at me in utter amazement and said, 'If you think he's handsome now, you shoidd have seen him before he bore all those children.' " [Laughter] We tried to find out from her the statistics of how many men died of childbirth among the Basques! I say that merely to point out that when people's customs are different, it doesn't always mean they are inferior, for we, too, have our customs that set us off from all other people. 1 remember that Margaret Mead went over to England during the war and spoke to many audiences. She said it didn't matter what part of England she went to or what class of .societ}- she addressed, they always asked one (juestion, and that was: "AVhv 162 American Association of School Administrators is it that American soldiers always lean against stands and doors and walls and posts all of the time?" Over in England only an uneducated person would ever think of leaning. Margaret Mead said finally there was only one answer she could give, and that was that over here in America it is our custom and sometimes we are taught to take the weight off our feet on every possible occasion. We wanted our students to know that these are customs that are not carried in our protoplasm, and they can be changed. If education is going to be any more than teaching a few interesting facts and a few skills, it must lead over into changes of attitude outside of schools. You know how difficult that is. We tried every method we could because youngsters in high school give the right answers on paper and pencil tests. We got many anecdotes. Some of them you might enjoy. For example, one young Czech boy hadn't taken a bath in .the five months that I had had him, and all the teachers were beginning to say that he wasn't quite bright. One day I asked the students, "How do you think you learned your prejudices?" and this little Czech boy wrote a single line across his paper. He said, "I learned my prejudices at my mother's knee and other joints." [Laughter] If he had been a philosopher and thought for twenty years, I think he could not have said it any better. Then I had a little Italian boy who had been in and out of the juvenile court since he was nine. At the very end of the course I asked the class, "What do you want to know about race?" He raised his hand and said, "I don't want to know nothing about race. My own race is good enough for me." That week two Americans died — Al Smith and Wendell Willkie. I remember I said to the students, "Two great Americans died this week. See if you can write down their names." This little Italian boy wrote down the name of Al Smith and of an unknown Italian gangster who had been shot in Chicago that week. His own race was good enough for him. Until we as teachers and as administrators begin to make boys like that little Italian boy feel comfortable as being an Italian, we cannot hope to make them feel comfortable with people of other nationalities, much less with people of other races. We asked, "What are the causes of prejudice?" We found what you would expect we would find, that economic causes lay at the root. For example, at Leland Stanford a year ago we gave a contradictory test, the only time we gave it to a minority group. We gave it on the Jews. This is a test that lists ten questions that absolutely contradict each other. Question number one says, "All Jews are bankers." Question number ten turns right around and says just the opposite: "All Jews are Communists." Question number two says, "All Jews are prying and trying to get into our private life," and question number nine says just the opposite: "All Jews are clannish and stay only with their own people." We gave that test, and we found out what has been found out every- where in the United States since then. Every one of my children who said that all Jews were bankers were exactly the same ones who said that all General Sessions 163 Jews are Coniniunists; and those who doubted and said that only some Jews are prying were the same ones who said that only some Jews are clannish. I think you would be interested in one of the correlations. We found that prejudice against the Jews increased as the family's income went up. So, we asked, "Where docs the greatest amount of prejudice against Negroes occur? " and you know what wc found. As the famil\'s income goes down, anti-Negro feeling increases. So, you can see the competitive angle. It is the college president, the doctor, the dentist, and the lawyer who set up their motives in their colleges and professional schools because they are in active competition against the Jew; and it is the unskilled laborer who is most fearful of the Negro. As one of my boys says, "When the war is over some fellow has to lose his job, and it isn't going to be my dad." I don't have to tell this audience that it doesn't matter how high your income, it doesn't matter how high your I.Q., the greatest correlation of prejudice today is the correlation with insecurity. It was my frustrated, my maladjusted, my unhappy child too often from the broken home, that had the greatest amount of prejudice over the six months' period. Just so, as we study the members' case histories of Columbians Incorporated or Gen- tiles Incorporated of Wisconsin, we are finding that they, too, are the maladjusted and the frustrated people. Our best way to combat prejudice today is to give to all our people the security they need, the satisfaction of their needs, for all of us have a need to be loved, a need to succeed, a need to belong, but most important of all, we all have the need of being wanted. We found that facts will change attitudes, but not as much as we had hoped, only 8 percent. We found that facts are not enough. What we need also is the emotional approach. We need also the opportunity of people working together. We found that our changes came as a result of many races and of many religions working side by side on a common problem. Yet, we must take exception to what the Dean of Education at Columbia has said : namely, that what teachers say about races or about religions and what textbooks say is unimportant. We know that it is important. Other- wise, what the teacher and the textbooks say about other things wouldn't matter at all. We found that facts are important. You are asking, "What is all this to me as an administrator? What can administrators do in this important field which you have listed as one of the five most important problems facing the United States?" From my visits to your schools and from the feelings I get as I entered those schools, I say that yours is the most important job of all. Yours to create an atmosphere in which the total school moves in an environment of freedom and of creative action ; that is, through your organizational and administrative procedures, you must set the pattern of the schools and of the community. Only through your own action can you create the atmosphere in which teachers know that you are encouraging them to use their greatest creative ability and are sure that you will provide the security they need to create the atmosphere in which teachers are concerned about children, not just subjectmatter. Only through your own action can you create the atmosphere in which teachers are encouraged to develop the 164 American Association of School Administrators professional skill to learn how to exxhange ideas and work with others, for there is a terrible loneliness in people who are trying to create alone. Yours to create an atmosphere which will remove the walls which lie between superintendents and principals and teachers. Yours to create an atmosphere in which the community is concerned about what the school does and the school is concerned about what the community wants. Human relations are not simply Negro and white, or Protestant, Catholic and Jew. Human relations are an ever-widening circle. Development comes only through planning and working together. Only by the careful delega- tion of authority can democracy come into being. Democracy must be practiced in our schools as well as talked about. It seems to me that Lillian Smith summed it up when she said: "The unpardonable sin for you, for me, for every human being is to have more knowledge than understanding, more power than love ; to know more about the earth than about the people who live in it ; to invent quick means of travel to faraway places when one cannot grope one's way within one's own heart. For freedom is a dreadful thing unless it goes hand in hand with responsibility. Democracy among men is a specter except when the hearts of men are mature." Today we know that the world you have been talking about this week depends on at least three things. It depends on knowledge, but knowledge is not enough. It depends on motivation. But most important of all, it depends upon the courage of you to develop in your students and in your communities maturity — maturity that will give the people courage so that when they read in their newspapers that there is illegal voting in Warsaw, Poland, they will strike out "Warsaw, Poland," and put instead the names of some of our cities right he^e in the United States, courage to ask their missionaries not to go abroad and teach to the Fijians, the Hottentots, and the Bushmen when too often right in their own congregation they do not practice what they preach ; moral courage to stand up and fight in the defense of right and justice as they have had the physical courage to fight in war; courage simply to expand the word "American" to include more kinds of people than you and I have ever dared include before ; courage to know that you and I are all prejudiced, that everyone in this room is prejudiced. If any say that they are not, they are pathological, because you and I were raised in the pattern of prejudice. I remember that when I taught in the third grade in the Colorado schools, I taught about the Eskimos, and when I taught about the Eskimos who live in Alaska, my children built the best looking cardboard igloo I think I ever saw. When I talked about the Eskimos who live in Greenland, my children played in that igloo as third grade children do. Then I had to go to Alaska, where I watched a Hollywood motion picture house teaching Alaskan Eskimos how to build igloos, for no Alaskan Eskimo has ever lived in an igloo and he knows less about it than your third-grade child. We have taught for so long that the only good Indian is a dead Indian because of that very uncomfortable habit of scalping, but we have never taught that the Indians north of Mexico and south of Maine never scalped Geni-rai, SiissiONs 165 until the Wliitr Man cainr atid tau^'ht tlicin Imw and paid them $50 a scalp for doing it, and that it was William Penn, the founder of the City of Hrotherly Love, who paid them the highest price of all. Hy the time the colonists reached the Middle AVest, all of the Indians in that area were scalpintory that afternoon than I learned in all my days at school. Her great- great-grandmother was still alive. She was ninety-six. She had taught her granddaughter the history of INIaryland. We got to the place where she was to get off, and she said to me, "Thank you for talking to me." I wasn't thinking, apparently, that after- noon because I caught myself saying, "Why?" She hesitated a moment, and then she said, "Because there are some folks on this bus who will look down on you for having talked to me." I thought about what she said all the rest of the way to that college town, and the first story 1 told the dean of women was what that Negro girl had said. The dean of women sort of smiled and she said, "You re- member, in our correspondence I told you that your audience was going to be an all-white audience, and they come from the deep South." Well, I gave my talk on the origin of man, and when I finished there was time for one more story. One of the girls rashly asked me to tell her one experience, and \ou know the experience I told. I had been figuring all evening how 1 could work it In. I told them the story of this Negro girl. I remember that I said I had talked to quite a few people In the last few months, and the chances were that I would forget much that they said, but it would be years before I would forget a Negro girl riding on the bus to their college town who said, "There are some folks on this bus who will look down on you for having talked to me." There was absolute silence In my audience, and I was very sorry I had told that story because, as a teacher, I know if I really want to teach I must begin where people are and not where I would like them to be. Then the chairman, who had been sitting out In the audience got up and said very quietly, "Yes, that is what we are learning in all our classes today. We must begin to talk across to one another, and then we will all look up and build America together." She, 1 found out, was a white girl from Mississippi, from Bilbo's Missis- sippi, who said in such a simple wav what well nnght become the philosophy 166 American Association of School Administrators of our nation and of the world: "We must begin to talk across to one another, and then we will all look up and build America together." THE SOUND BASIS FOR FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION THE HONORABLE ROBERT A. TAFT, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM OHIO President Hill: Our next speaker this morning has the distinction of having spent four years in the White House already and, as one of the advertising agencies says, not everybody can say that. He is also dis- tinguished as being one of the ninety-five or ninety-six United States Sen- ators. There seems to be a slight question whether we have ninety-five or ninety-six. In addition, he is one of the few men in the nation who has the chance to be nominated by the Republican Party and to be elected by the nation in 1948. Dropping politics, our special interest in him is that he is interested in federal aid to education, and so are we. His willingness to change from being against federal aid to education to his present status of being for federal aid to education is one evidence of his open- mindedness. It is my pleasure and honor to present the Honorable Robert A. Taft, whose subject is: "The Sound Basis for Federal Aid to Education." Senator Taft. Senator Taft: Mr. Chairman and Members of the American Associa- tion of School Administrators: I greatly appreciate your greeting. It is a great pleasure to me to come here. For a good many years I worked with school administrators, particularly during the eight years which I spent in the Ohio Legislature. I think that during those years probably half the legislation we had had to do with schools. We had to deal with the difficult problems of taxation, the financing of the schools, the improve- ment of the school systems, reconciliation of local self-government and effi- cient centralization of schools, and in all of that work I think the members of your group in Ohio were always helpful and constructive and ready to present practical solutions to the problems that we had. It is unnecessary in such a gathering as this to dwell on the importance of education in the United States and, therefore, to the federal government. Education lies at the very basis of all intelligent self-government. This nation was founded "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." As Lincoln summed it up, it was "conceived in liberty and dedi- cated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Liberty and equal justice under law are the foundations of our government, and they must be continuously secured if we are to carry out the purposes of the formation of this Republic, but neither liberty nor justice can be secured without a widely diffused education. We cannot preserve the Republic at all unless the people are taught to read and to think so that they can understand its basic principles and the application of those principles to current problems. No man can be free who does not understand the opportunities which lie before him. No man can have equality of opportunity if he has not the General Sessions 167 knowledge to understand how to use the rights which may be conferred upon hiin in theory. Furthermore, education is essential to economic welfare. The principal concern of the people today, as far as I can see, apparently is to increase the standard of living and the material welfare of our citizens, I believe this goal, in politics at least, is being pursued too much to the exclusion of other even more important values, but certainly it does dominate our national political thinking. Any general economic welfare is impossible without education. Unless men understand to some extent the principles of increased productivity, prosperity can be quickly destroyed. Unless men know what other men have achieved and are educated to a desire for the same improvements, history shows that they may remain in perpetual poverty. I have always felt that the misery which depresses the masses of people in India, in China, and in some other parts even under our own flag, is due to the lack of education and understanding of the higher standards which are possible. Furthermore, education is the only defense of liberty against totalitarian- ism. It may be that intelligent people will be occasionally misled to vest complete power in the state or in a single individual, but without educa- tion, dictatorships arise inevitably. By the same token, education may be a dangerous tool in the hands of an all-powerful state. We have seen how Hitler used education to change the whole philosophy of German youth, until they came to believe in the doctrine of a superior race and totalitarian government. Such a government, in the end, of course, could only have maintained itself by suppressing freedom of education. Broadly speaking, this country has done a good job in education. It finally became fully committed to the principle of universal free schooling for every child in the United States. Its system was built up on the basis of the development and control of education by each state and each com- munity, so that the parents in the city, town, and county that might be the unit could determine the manner in which their children should be edu- cated. Naturally, the character of education varied throughout the country, and it was of many different qualities and types. Experiments in method have been freely made and have failed or succeeded after a fair trial. Men differently taught have developed novel and clashing theories which have finally met in the form of national debate to be passed upon by the entire people, as they should be in a free republic. This very variety of education has promoted a freedom of thought and, consequently, a material progress, greater than that of any other country in the world. Of course, this same localization of education has made it in some re- spects less effective. Some districts have done their job poorly. That is an inevitable incident of local administration, but we may well remember that when a federal system develops faults in any field — and it always does develop faults — those faults extend throughout the entire country on a universal scale. We have seen such things happening in many fields in the last twelve years. The adoption of a federal system will always look perfect on paper, but in practice it soon will develop the inefficiencies of every 168 American Association of School Administrators huge bureaucracy, besides subjecting twenty-five million children to the ideology of a small clique in control in Washington. The faults of local administration in some districts, therefore, cannot all be cured, because they are due to the very freedom to make mistakes which is essential to any freedom at all. But in many districts the failure in education is due to causes which can well be remedied, and in particular if it be due to the poverty of the district or of the state in which it lies. While money is not the only requirement of a good school system, as so many of our writers on public-school education seem to think, it is certainly an essential one. There is a wide variation in the wealth of different states and districts. The income per capita ranges from $484 in Mississippi to $1452 in Connecticut for the year 1943, a difference of three to one in the average wealth of the people. The differences between districts in the same state are even wider. In 1939-1940 the best financed school systems spent $6000 or more per classroom unit, and the poorest financed systems less than $100 per classroom unit, a difference of sixty times. In the poorest financed schools something like 20,000 children, I think, were in the lowest group and 40,000 is the highest. Of course, there is a much closer average as a rule, but certainly that is a discrepancy depending chiefly on the dif- ference in financial ability. In 1942 and 1943 the average salary of all public elementary-school and secondary-school principals and supervisors ranged from $654 in Missis- sippi to $2697 in New York State, four times as much in one state as in another. The value of school property per pupil in attendance averaged $371 for the nation as a whole, but ranged from $103 in Alabama to $670 in New York, a difference of six times. The result is that children in some districts receive a poorer education or no education at all. In West Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, one-third of the children get only five years of education, and in a large number of other states between a fourth and a fifth get only five A'ears of education. Of course, the whole thing has been shown up clearly by the illiteracy found in the Selective Service examinations. Re- jection rates for educational deficiency averaged nearly 8 percent through- out the nation as a whole, with a much heavier rate in the poorer states. Even in the wealthier states there was a small percent of rejections for this cause, perhaps because of persons who had come from other states, which only shows the interest we should have in the education of other states. In any event, we have failed to do a complete job of giving American school children equal opportunity, due in part, as I say, to causes which I believe can be corrected. Without question, the primary obligation to educate children under our constitutional system falls on the states and local districts. But I believe very strongly that the federal government has a proper function in the field. We are a great and wealthy nation. I believe the people of this country feel that our productive ability is so great that we can prevent not only illiteracy but hardship and poverty in the United States. Perhaps Genkral Sessions 169 11(1 nation has ever succeeded in doin}2; so, but the American people, I believe, think it is possible for us to do it, or at least to attain somethin}: near that Ko^'l- 1 'ic federal fioverninent is authorized to levy taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, and under that constitutional grant has the right to dispense mone\' to the states and local districts for purposes not within the constitutional power of the United States to control or regulate. Not only are some of the states poor, but states in general have a limited power of taxation. They cannot raise their taxes much above those of other states, or their citizens and industries would gradually drift away into those other states. The federal government's powers of taxation, of course, are not unlimited, as some people seem to think, but we are raising some thirty-five billion dollars today compared to about ten billion for the states and local districts. My own belief is that the federal government should assist those states desiring to put a floor under essential services in relief, in medical care, in housing, and in education. Apart from the general humanitarian interest in achieving this result, equality of opportunity lies at the basis of the entire Republic. No child can begin to have equality of opportunity unless he does have medical care in his youth, adequate food, decent surroundings, and above all, effective schooling. It is the concern of the entire nation to see that the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution are translated into reality. I may not quite accept Miss Alpenfel's thesis that all men are actually created equal, but certainly we can agree that they are sufficiently equal that they are entitled to an equality of opportunity to improve the faculties that are conferred upon them. I believe, therefore, that the federal government should undertake a system of extending financial aid to the states with the objective of enabling the states to provide a basic minimum education to every child, to the end that equal opportunity shall not be interfered with by the financial condi- tion of the state or district of the child's residence. In order to do that, we have recently introduced a bill practically the same as that which Senators* Hill and Thomas and I introduced at the last session, now known as S472, in the introduction of which I was joined by Mr. Thomas of Utah, Mr. Ellender of Louisiana, Mr. Hill of Alabama, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, Mr. Cooper of Kentucky, Mr. Chavez of New Mexico, and Mr. Tobey of New Hampshire. A bill "to authorize the appropriation of funds to assist the states and territories in financing a minimum foundation education program of public elementary and secondary schools and in reducing the inequalities of educational opportunities through public elementary and secondary schools for the general welfare and for other purposes." Certain principles, however, seem to me ver\' clear. 1 opposed a bill for federal aid to education some years ago. I think in that bill those principles were very largely disregarded. Since then I have been trying to work with the other advocates on a bill which doe> conform to what seems to me to 170 American Association of School Administrators be the necessary principles if we are going into the business of encouraging the federal government to assist education. First, the administration of education and the control of the school system must be completely in the hands of state and local administrators. I believe that every federal aid proposal which has been made accepts that principle in theory. I think every bill I have ever seen writes that in as a general principle. It is admitted that local self-government in education is essential to the preservation of liberty in a country the size of the United States. I may say I feel no principle of government more strongly, not only in education but in every field. If we are going to maintain freedom in the United States, a country as large as this, we must maintain the inde- pendence and freedom of state and local administration. [Applause] I have seen how the thing works in Washington. Once all power in a field is concentrated in a Washington bureau, there is no freedom. The people of this country have very little to say about what happens. I see them come down to Washington. Maybe I can get them in to see the fellow that they are trying to find. If I don't help them, it takes them two or three days to find who it is that has to do with the problem in which they are interested. I can help them a little perhaps in cutting down the time. When they get there, they are heard, sometimes politely, sometimes not, but when they go away they are forgot. The general attitude of a federal bureau is that the people are too dumb to understand and that the bureau knows the whole subject. Of course, the matter of federal control is not so simple as simply declaring a principle in the bill. Our experience has shown that federal aid to local activities, even though disowning an intention to regulate and control, may easily bring about such a control. If federal aid depends on the discretion of some federal officer who has the power to withhold funds, human nature is such that he is apparently under a constant temptation to tell the recipients of the money how they must run their affairs. The threat is there, sometimes expressed and sometimes implied, that if the state bureau does not comply with federal suggestions, the money will not be forthcoming. We have seen an example of this in the control attempted to be exercised by the Children's Bureau during the war. Therefore, I believe that the standards should be clearly established in the law and that the federal government should interest itself in only one question, whether the statutory standard is complied with and the money used only for the purposes of the Act. If we can reduce the federal interference to a matter of audit, we may hope to maintain local inde- pendence. Fortunately, the tradition of the Federal Office of Education, as contrasted with some of the other federal fields, has been one of non- interference, and the office up to this time has preferred to work through the state departments of education and has accepted, I think in good faith, the general principle of state and local control. I have pointed out that federal administrative officers are inclined to extend their jurisdiction and interference, but it isn't only the adminis- General Sessions 171 trative officers. We must also restrain the inclination of Congress to do the same. In any appropriation bill hereafter passed, long after a federal aid system is established, someone may introduce an amendment providing that the funds appropriated shall not be used for some purpose which happens to be unpopular in Congress at the moment. Thus an amendment may require that no money shall be used for education which teaches socialism, for instance. 'J'he purpose may be a praiseworthy one or not, but the moment Congress imposes that kind of condition, it may soon impose others and we are embarked on a course likely to lead to complete federal control. We must be constantly on our guard. Also, if the federal funds become a very considerable percent of the total sum being used, it is almost impossible to prevent some federal inter- ference, even with every safeguard provided within the bill which we have introduced. I think states which accept federal funds and come to rely on them are in danger of losing some part of their independence. A state which can get on without federal money had better exert every effort to do so. 1 do not regret, therefore, that Ohio is in a position where it can carry on, in my opinion, from the financial standpoint without federal assistance, and will have to do so under the formula in our bill. The danger of federal control and congressional interference in educa- tional policy appears clearly in the controversy now going on regarding private and parochial schools. The advocates of such schools insist that the federal money be a\ailable to such schools regardless of the policy of any state government in refusing to recognize such schools as part of the public-school system. On the other hand, the opponents of such schools wish us to declare that no federal money shall be expended for private or parochial schools, regardless of what the policy of the state may be as to its own funds. If we yielded to either of these arguments, I think we would clearly be changing the educational policy of the state. This bill is a state-aid bill, and the state should be authorized to use the federal funds for the same purposes for which it uses its own state funds. If the state recognizes private and parochial schools as part of its state educational system, then the bill provides that it may use federal funds in the same proportion in which its state funds are used for such schools. Getting away from the controversial parochial question for a moment, in the state of Vermont, for instance, most of the high schools, at least in the rural sections of the state, are private schools subsidized by the state. Under this bill that system may be continued and they may use federal funds to increase the subsidies for those private schools exactly as they use them for increases to the other schools. On the other hand, if the state educational policy is to operate only through public schools, federal money can be used only for that purpose. If we cannot maintain the principle of non-interference in state educa- tional systems on such a basic question of educational policy, I would be opposed to the entire bill. The question has nothing to do with the highly controversial problem of whether states should appropriate public funds for parochial schools. One may feel strongh on that subject either wa\-, but it 172 American Association of School Administrators is a matter for each state and the people of each state to determine, and we in effect refer that controversy for state determination. The second principle which I believe must underlie any bill for federal aid is that the federal contribution shall be auxiliary and shall not become the principal support of education. I have already pointed out that regard- less of safeguards, too much reliance on federal money would inevitably come to mean federal control. But even more than that, the federal gov- ernment's primary obligations are going to take the greater part of the money which can be raised by federal taxation. Three national responsi- bilities— interest on the public debt, support of the armed forces, and payment of veterans' allowances — amount in the present budget to twenty- three and a half billion dollars, three times the entire prewar budget of the federal government. It is not true that the federal government can levy all the taxes it may like to levy. The present tax burden seems to me so heavy as to be a complete discouragement of the very economic activity from which taxes must come. The people today on the average are paying nearly one-third of their income in taxation, working one day in three for the government. 1 believe such a tax system will soon discourage both individual initiative and corporate expansion. While the states are limited, so to speak, from the legal standpoint in their ability to raise taxes, the federal government has no legal limitations, but it has a very practical economic limitation if we are going to maintain a free enterprise system at all. The federal contributions to states, therefore, in matters where the states have the primary obligation — like welfare, health, housing, and education — must be in a limited amount. The state tax systems have been set up in most cases very largely with a view to raising money for educa- tion. They should be even more adapted to that purpose, because it is peculiarly almost the first field for state and local interest. I think the people of the states on the whole are more interested in their schools than they are in any other activity of the state or local government. The state tax systems should be looked to primarily for the necessary increase in teachers' salaries. 1 realize the difficulty which even the wealthier states have today to raise the necessary money, but I believe that such states can do so and should. My own theory is that ivage rates per hour have undergone a permanent increase, which means a permanent increase in costs. I doubt if the cost of living can at any time be reduced to ?nuch less than 150 percent of prewar. I believe on the whole ive will do better in our economic policy to try to adjust our zvhole economy to a 50 percent increase in the wage and price level than to fry to reduce it by deflation to anything like that which we had before the luar. Since teachers were in most cases underpaid even before the war, the increase in teachers' salaries over prewar should probably be greater than 50 percent. I believe the states can and should give such an increase. It is true that it takes some time to adjust a state tax system to the higher level of General Sessions 173 values, to increase real estate appraisals and the like, but certainly the increased price and wage levels should be reflected in time in a permanent corresponding increase in the state tax receipts. For the present many states have a surplus. Those which have no surplus might provide for a gradual increase over several years. But I feel strongly that the federal government, with its tremendous burden, should not be called upon to solve the financial problems of states having more than the a\erage per capita income, fully able to give an adequate education to their children. S472 pro\ides that, as a necessary condition of federal aid, any state must provide for its primary and secondary educational system at least 2.2 percent of the income of its citizens. This is slightly higher than the national average. Furthermore, the allotment to any state is proportionately reduced if it does not levy at least 2]/2 percent of the income of its citizens. When 1 speak of the income of its citizens, the concept is one of a state income similar to what we have come to speak of as national income, namely, the gross income of all the individuals of the state as determined by the Department of Commerce. I do not suppose that this statistical measure of relative income is completely accurate, but it is now regarded as substantially so for practical purposes. The bill then provides that if 1.1 percent of the state income, which would be one-half the total state and local revenue set aside for primary and secondary education, is insufficient to provide $40 for each child from five to seventeen years of age in the state, then the federal government will make up the difference so that one-half of the state revenue plus the federal contribution will equal $40 for each such child. It is estimated that that will cost approximately two hundred and thirty million dollars when it is in full effect. It is then required that the state see that every school district in the state receive from federal, state, and local revenues at least $40 per annum for each pupil in average daih' attendance, excluding interest, debt service, and capital outlay. If there are separate colored schools, each colored school must receive that minimum amount. You will note that there will remain to the state to be used in its discretion one-half of its total school revenues, equal at least to 1.1 percent of the income of its people. In effect we say that the state must take half of its revenue and equalize that half of its revenue among all the districts in the state. If that equali- zation doesn't produce $40 per child, then the federal government will raise the equalization until it does. Undoubtedly, some districts will get a larger proportion nf what is left, the other half of their income, than others, but it should be entirely possible for a state to provide from such funds a higher minimum base than $40 if it chooses to do so. We considered making a requirement of perhaps $60 per child, but we found that while there would be enough money in each state from state, local, and federal funds after this federal assistance to provide such a uniform standard, it would require taking inone\ now being spent for schools in the wealthier districts in the state to be distribxited to the others. Perhaps a state equalization system should do that, but \vr did 174 American Association of School Administrators not feel that the federal government should compel the reduction of the educational standard in any district in any state, even though it were a w^ealthier urban district. In summary, therefore, the basis of S472 is that if a state after making more than the average effort cannot provide $40 per child from half its revenue, the federal government will assist the state to see that every child receives at least a $40 education. I realize that this is too low a permanent standard, but it is very much higher than is now being spent for many children in the poorer districts of the United States. It will take some years to reach even the $40 standard, and then we can consider whether to shoot at a higher goal. There is reason to hope that the disparity in income between the dif- ferent states may gradually decrease. The very education in the poorer states which we are now promoting ought to increase the progress, pros- perity, and income of those states. As they approach the national average, the necessity for aid from the federal government will become less. This might well enable us, without increasing the appropriation, to raise the standard. I quite realize that this bill does not hold out any immediate promise of relief to the teachers in many states. Where the aid does go, probably 80 percent of it will go for increases in teachers' salaries where those salaries are now the lowest. There are some bills providing a general contribution by the federal government to all teachers' salaries and proposing very large appropriations for federal assistance to education. I do not believe that Congress under the present budget conditions could possibly adopt any such bill. In fact, even with S472 providing up to two hundred and fifty million dollars, we may have to postpone its first effective year until the Appropriations Committee certifies that the program can be begun within any over-all limitation set under the provisions of the La Follette-Monroney Bill. I see no reason, however, that the bill should not be passed and then taken into consideration in the next fixing of an over-all limitation. The principal danger to the present bill, I think, rests in the differences between the advocates of federal aid, not only in the parochial school field but in the general method by which it shall be done. I feel very strongly that if all of the advocates would unite behind a bill of this type, S472, it could be passed at this session of Congress. It is based on sound principles. It recognizes the obligation of the national government to see that each child has an adequate education. It is based on equality of opportunity, which is an appealing slogan and an appealing ideal for every citizen of the United States. It recognizes and avoids the dangers of federal control and leaves to the states the responsibility and the power to work out their own salvation. It would be a tremendous step forward in assuring to America the means of striving forward constantly toward the ultimate ideal of complete equality and complete liberty. President Hill: May I express our appreciation to Senator Taft for his coming here this morning from a host of activities and responsibilities to give us this address. TENTH GENERAL SESSION ThurSihy Afternoon, March 6, 1947 CONCERT BY THE NEW JERSEY ALL-STATE HIGH SCHOOL ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS np}{is session was jjiven over to a presentation and discussion of music -^ in the high schools. For selections hy the New Jersey All-State High School Orchestra and Chorus, see program on page 242. President Hill: At this, the final general session of our Seventy-Third Annual Convention of the American Association of School Administrators, we want to express our very great appreciation to the New Jersey All-State High School Orchestra and Chorus, which you have just heard, the orchestra being under the leadership of Mr. Harry Peterson as conductor, and the chorus imder Mr. Arthur E. Ward. You will hear them again later in the program. As superintendents of schools and school administrators through- out the United States, we know something of the difficulty and something of the work and detail of getting together a group of young people from all over the state of New Jersey, and we appreciate it very much indeed. OUR KIND OF MUSIC FRED WARING President Hill: Before introducing our speaker, I should like to pre- sent a very special guest. I am going to give you her name and let her stand, and you can guess who she is. I have the honor of presenting Miss Dixie Waring. [Applause] If you don't know, she is the twelve-year-old daughter of our guest speaker. Now it is a very great pleasure to present to you an individual — I asked one of his friends what I should say about him, and he said, "Well, you might tell them that it takes a good deal of courage for a man to step out of his normal walk of life, when he is making music and leading a big group and has seventy people behind him." I think that is true. It takes ability, too, because Mr. Waring doesn't ordinarily make speeches. But for his encouragement I want to say that he has 370 very devoted admirers here immediately behind him and another host right out here in front, all of whom are for him. I am not going to tell you all about who he is, but I do want to express our appreciation that he has taken a few hours out of his very busy life to come down here and talk to school superintendents and school administrators and high-school boys and girls about "Our Kind of Music." I am happy to present Mr. Fred Waring. Mr. W.aring: Mr. President, Ladies, and (ientlemen of the American Association of School Administrators, and Ho>s and (jirls of this magnifi- cent orchestra and chorus: I should say before we start that it was inspiring [ 175 J 176 American Association of School Administrators music and inspiringly conducted. I think Mr. Ward and Mr. Peterson are having all the fun this afternoon. It is true that my friend hit the right chord when he said that I feel better usually when there are seventy of my own people behind me and, as Mr. Hill pointed out, I should be better olif now that there are 370 back of me, but the salary difference perhaps should count for something. I am somewhat relieved that I need not be forced to pay this many people weekly, but it would be a blessing to have this many earnest singers in our glee club and so many earnest musicians. Well, I have a few things which I am supposed to say. This is not the first occasion on which I have been summoned into The Presence. My recollection of such visits is vivid and painful. They were climaxed by one, some thirty years ago at Penn State, during which the dean suggested that the profession of architecture would not suffer if I spent all my time, instead of most of it, playing the banjo. [Laughter] This is, how- ever, the first time I have been asked to face school administrators more than one at a time. Frankly, it's pretty terrifying. Most frightening of all is the fact that in previous interviews the principal has always had something to tell me. This time some thousands of you are gathered in the expectation that / have something to tell you. Fortunately, I have, although it was only after a great deal of wondering that I decided to accept the honor of your surprising and challenging invitation. Naturally, no man can spend more than twenty-five years in constant professional study of the relationship between people and music without coming to some pretty firm conclusions. The point about which I was con- cerned was how much value these conclusions would have for a gathering of principals, superintendents, and deans. It seems a matter of common ground. Whatever 1 have learned about the guidance and development of the natural resource of music was not gained from the viewpoint of the educator or by his orderly methods of research. It was gained from the viewpoint of the performer, who stands or falls on the breadth of his knowledge, not of the music of the school, but that of the world around him. The fact that we differed so greatly in approach blinded me, at the outset, to the similarity of our problems, to the fact that the music world of the educator has changed even more violently than that of the performer. More importantly, I had forgot that, for the most part, we are responsible to the same audience. The childhood tendency to deify the principal does not easily give way to the understanding of him as a person with a job of work to do. Yet, in recalling conversations I have had with school administrators in many parts of the country in recent years, I remembered them as people with a sincere love of music and a strong conviction that it is an enrichment of living. I was further reassured on remembering that the musical tastes of these men and women, not music teachers themselves, were broad and unacademic. In the light of that experience, it seemed reasonable to believe that most of you here might share these same attitudes. This is borne out by conversa- tions with many among you. It makes me very happy to know that I may be useful as a part of this great conference. General Sessions 177 I am certain that none of you expects me to present a technical discourse on music and music pedapopy. I am equally certain that, even if I had the ahility to deliver such a talk, it would do neither of us any good. Our major mutual concern is to make music play the broadest possible part in the lives of the greatest possible number of people. We may take for granted that adequate technics are necessary to any effective program of music education and that, once the project is determined, they will be provided. It is in terms of the heart and the spirit that you and I must talk about music if we are to be purposeful and successful in the administra- tion of our respective aims. The stated theme of your convention, "Education and the Development of Human and Natural Resources," requires that we consider music not in terms of technical instruction but in terms of its contribution, as a natural human resource, to natural, human living. It is clear that your great theme concerns the lives of all your students, not the talented minority alone. The problems of the talented minority have changed little with the years. Music, to this group, is of specialized, almost professional interest. To the rest, the tremendous majority, the enjoyment of music is casual, to a large degree accidental, and all too seldom associated with school life. Time was, not so long ago, when the child's experience with music was partially controlled and, in a fashion, directed by a small group of adults. Music teachers, choirmasters, and interested parents planned his musical diet, and there wasn't much he could do about it. In those days the battle cry of the true missionaries of music education was: "Let's bring music to the people!" We traveled long distances to metropolitan centers if we wished to hear good professional performances. The musical fare of our smaller com- munities was limited to the infrequent visits of chautauqua and lyceum groups. I recall the stir occasioned by traveling musical events in my home town, Tyrone, Pennsylvania, and our family pilgrimages to Altoona to hear the visiting celebrities. I recall, too, the enthusiastic gatherings of neighbors who came to hear mother's and dad's local talent concerts, aug- mented by the talking machine and cylinder recordings of the Edison Mili- tary Concert Hand. The music situation in my town was little different from that of practically every center the size of Tyrone. The limitations of our exposure to the art defined the limitations of our acceptance of it. They did not, however, limit our preferences. Perhaps the diversity of musical favoritism in our family was typical. I distinctly remember our critical comments following a safari to the city to hear Tetrazzini, the great opera star of the time. Mother and father, with their lifetime background of church music, witnessed the proceedings with dignity and acceptance. 1 he rest of us held as many opinions as we were in number. Only Hrother Tom, always the artist, was greatly im- pressed. One sister drew unhappy comparisons with a singer of romantic ballads who had recently bewitched feminine Tyrone. Hrother Huil staunchly defended an Indian trombone player he had heard at a revival meeting. My favorites of the moment were a girls* quartette at the chau- 178 American Association of School Administrators tauqua. Their barber shop harmony was close, satisfactory, and under- standable. I'll never forget that female bass! But that was a long time ago. Today's youngsters can have all the music of the sort they want at almost any time they want it. Long before any adult does anything about their musical taste or appreciation, our children have learned to press the buttons of the radio set and are already choosing from the amazing quantity of music which is part of every day's radio production. When they go to a movie they absorb the wide variety of music which has become so vital to today's films, unconsciously relating it with the emotions that accompany it. Phonograph recordings are being manufactured and sold into their homes at a rate which even three years ago would have been considered fantastic. The enthusiasts who a few years ago were trying to "bring music to the people" are in many cases running around like the sorcerer's apprentice trying to shut at least some of it off. Today, nearly all music is instantly available to nearly all Americans. Music in homes, schools, churches, thea- ters; music in restaurants, automobiles, factories, stores; music of radio, films, phonograph, and concert hall ; Beethoven, Bartok, and boogie ; opuses, opera, and "Open the Door, Richard." Your children and mine sit down at a radio or phonograph and in one evening hear a greater range and variety of music than we could have ac- cumulated in months at their age, all of it performed by the finest artists of each field. This is a condition which we cannot discount in any planning we may devise concerning today's people and today's music. Actually, we have no control over it whatever because it is dependent on us neither for its exist- ence nor its direction. It is simply a part of the world in which we and our children live, and must be accepted as such. We have said, "Let's make music available to all the people." Very well, music is available to all the people. We have said, "Let's build our American music culture on a broad, American base, a culture for all." Very well, again. We are already seeing some sort of a music culture for all, growing with amazing rapidity. How much we, the performers, and you, the educators, are having to do with the development of this culture is a pretty doubtful quantity. In so far as the performers are concerned, I think that I do not misrepresent anyone from Toscanini to Spike Jones when I say that we have given the public just about what the public has requested. Whether symphony or jazz, "You pays your money, and you takes your choice!" I wonder how much I would be misjudging this august body if I were to suggest that perhaps the educators haven't had much to do with it, either. Still, with or without our assistance or interference, important things are happening. An unplanned plan is unfolding; a disorderly process is perform- ing an orderly function according to the natural law that where an abun- dance exists, some of it will not be wasted. The jitterbug hears more s^^mphony music in a year by accident than the symphony-loving Tyronean could have heard by traveling to Altoona through the whole year of 1916. The follower of serious music, on the other General Sessions 179 hand, not only hears more of his own sort than ever before, hut absorbs a pretty fair understanding of the other fellow's music while he's looking for it. There is considerable leavening in our new culture. More and more we find a tendency among fellow listeners to tolerate each other's music ; even, on occasion, to become mildl\- interested in it. In the family group this process is automatic. Church music, romantic ballads, Indian trombone players, Tetrazzinis, and even girl quartettes issue, in turn, from the same loud-speaker. There is no escape except physical retreat, a procedure always painful to the young. These are the conditions which surround our listeners and your students. I have said that I consider the problem of the educator and that of the performer to be similar. I believe the facts will bear me out. Each of us, for his own purposes, must attract the favorable attention and interest of a large proportion of the people who live in this music-filled world — with music. In the case of the Pennsylvanians, this is the very basis of our existence and has become a studiously planned business. Similarly, the eventual suc- cess of your broad program of music education must depend on your institu- tional understanding of the music your students are experiencing. Only this breadth of viewpoint will permit long-range planning for either of us, the setting of objectives which will allow for the entrance and exit of fads without distraction. The Pennsylvanians have outlived every musical fad since the turkey trot. We have accepted them happily, performed them — I believe, well — and abandoned them, without tears, somewhat in advance of their actual demise. We have watched many performers follow each fad in turn and disappear with it. I include these statements with no feeling of immodesty because I believe them to be pertinent and helpful. Our long public career has not been sus- tained by a series of spectacular right guesses as to the public's fancy of to- morrow. Whatever ivy you see growing on these old walls was nurtured by a constant and often painful adherence to a policy. We have never lost sight of the fact that our audience was growing in taste and understanding and that we, as a programming and performing group, must never lag behind. It has been, and will continue to be, our policy to perform the finest music which an audience of several million Americans can understand and enjoy. This music we have interspersed with the musical fun and rhythmic fads of the moment. I3ut zvhatever we have performed, we have done so with complete and absolute sincerity in the belief that any music which fulfils its purpose, great or small, is worthy of fine presentation. Can one call so simple a determination a cultural standard? We believe it is, but whether cultural standard or business policy, it has successfully held the interest of a large group of representative Americans over a long period. To some, the modest levels to which this culture has attained are disappoint- ing. To those who realize that it is the culture of the many, it is most heartening. As a matter of fact, we have learned several things about Ameri- can audiences which should be wonderfully encouraging to educators faced 180 American Association of School Administrators with the task of broadening their musical understanding and appreciation. The great mass of our listeners is warm and responsive to music which it understands, and tolerant of music which it doesn't understand. This is not a vague, wishful opinion. It is an observation backed by our policy of maintaining the closest possible contact with our audience. In the last few years we have read, analyzed, recorded, and answered hundreds of thousands of letters. Our offices are plainly listed in the telephone directory, and from the New York area, at least, we handle daily comments, inquiries, and re- quests by phone and in person. I feel that these contacts add considerable weight to such opinions as I may express, and justify their expression. We have come to believe — no, we have come to know that our listeners arc flexible in taste and receptive in attitude. In my opinion, Americans are ready to absorb worthwhile music at a rate never possible to any other people. I do not believe it would be an exaggeration to say that they are absorbing it. Certainly no people has ever heard so much worthwhile music, even by accident. Whatever this unconscious culture may turn out to be, it is a develop- ment of all the people and is only in small part affected by organized music instruction. I am informed that no more than 15 to 20 percent of the nation's high-school students are enrolled in music classes or perform in such groups as bands, orchestras, and choruses, and that the rest, the 80 to 85 percent, are usually comfortably tabbed as "Not interested in music." If this is true, it is something which warrants the attention of every school administrator. No group can hope to alifect the culture of all the people which disregards most of them. If we amend the statement, "Not interested in music," to read, "Not interested in the study of music," we begin to make sense. It is a matter of statistical fact that these people are interested in music — away from school. They are voluntarily listening to all sorts of music as entertainment and, as such, enjoying it. They play penny whistles, harmonicas, and combs. They beat out rhythms on any convenient object. They dance and, off key or on, they sing. Most of all, they sing. "But what are they singing?" you ask. That's easy. They are singing everything that comes along, whatever is popular, whatever strikes their fancy. If they can't sing it, they whistle it. They are unconsciously engaged in that cultural process common to all people since the beginning of music, selecting from the mass of songs they hear and sing, the folk songs of the future. In the basis of any truly great music culture there must be a large propor- tion of the music which is fundamentally the people's music, popular music in the broadest sense of the term. Otherwise, a culture for the few must continue to develop, a culture isolated from most of those for whom it was intended. I have no wish to imply that there need be competition between popular music and the so-called serious. Mass exposure to all kinds of music has served to break down the neat compartments in which we have been ac- customed to file it. General Sessions 181 Tschaikowsky, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Grieg are suddenly the com- posers of smash popular hits. Heifetz, the coldly hrilliant musician's musi- cian, has written a warmly beautiful popular song. Melchior, the greatest living Wagnerian tenor, is a very human and lovable comedian. By the same token, Art Tatum, a Negro performer of boogie woogie, has been pronounced one of the most brilliant piano technicians of the age; and the brass section of any good dance band might easily have caused Wagner to rescore all his orchestral music to enjoy their expanded technics. Rather than a competition between these two worlds of music, we are Hnding a way in which to become freely and naturally integrated. These are the beginnings of a culture. The career of the Pennsylvanians has followed one sincere conviction with regard to the sort of integration which has withstood many years of fads, styles, and changes of medium. That is the belief that the common denomi- nator of the music of all the people is the song. "The song is the thing." Poems are written to be read or spoken. Melodies are written to be played. Songs are written to be sung. Songs are neither words nor music, but words and music blended into an emotional e.xperience shared by singer and listener alike. Actually, their acceptance by the public has no more to do with their rhyme-scheme, meter, or melody than the key of a symphony bears to its beauty. A song is simply accepted and loved and lives, or is tried, rejected, and lost. That, of course, is why we say that the old songs are the best songs. They must be the best songs, else they wouldn't be the old ones. In time, the oldest old songs become the folk songs of a people and find their way into the literature of music education as source material. The song requires only the human voice and the human heart to make it live. It is the complete means of music participation for a whole people or a whole student body. It is, in my opinion, the one straight line between the educator and his so-called "disinterested" 80 percent. I suggest it as the tool by which the integration of which we have spoken may be most simply accomplished. I do not know how the music teachers of your schools go about building a working relationship between the music of their classrooms and that of the world about them, but I do know that it is a job which has to be done. You would hardly approve the teacher of any subject who would attempt to isolate his classes from the current, related happenings. Certainly, to isolate the study of music from the mass of public music to which we are all exposed would tend to create a limited culture. It is not for me to say just what should be done with or about popular music in any broad plan of music education. That is within the province of your teachers and part of their professional responsibility. But there are two things which I would earnestly recommend to them because they will tend to simplify the task. First, your teacher himself should be aware of all the music his students are experiencing, even familiar with it, whether he personally likes it or 182 American Association of School Administrators not. That music, regardless of the place it occupies in the scale of taste, regardless of its essential worth, is part of the material from which he must fashion his finished product. Second, your music teacher must be completely open-minded and sympa- thetic in his consideration of all sorts of music. Integration implies unity and similarity of all the parts to be integrated and not a picking and choos- ing among the parts. It is unfair and, more importantly, ineffectual to try to impose one person's likes and dislikes on the many. Your teacher is guiding his students to a greater enjoyment of music in thev- lives, not his. When such a basis of mutual understanding and tolerance is once estab- lished, the groundwork is laid for advancement. For the pupil, the begin- nings of musical wisdom could easily be so simple a discovery as the fact that a Bach two-part invention makes swell swing music or that a symphony orchestra makes exciting noises. The teacher, himself, might profit equally from the discovery that there is much fine, studious music in the literature of jazz or that the arrangements of much popular music are often fine examples of orchestration. Happily, it has been our privilege to meet and assist a great many of your teachers who are making a thorough study of the music their students are hearing, so we realize that any over-all indictment for "teacher intolerance" would be unfair. But we also realize that there has not been enough of this sort of effort. Perhaps some of the conservatism of your music department may even emanate from the school offices. If so, let's solve that here and now. For the job which will be expected from it, your music department needs a free hand. I hope that you who are administrators realize the task which faces your music teachers in these days when their pupils find so much glamor in the music of films, radio, and recordings. The boy who has had several million dollars' worth of talent working for his radio entertainment last night is a hard lad to face this morning with the date of Bach's birth and the names of the cello strings. The radio shows he heard last night were backed by tremendous invest- ments of money and time for research, rehearsal, new compositions, arrange- ments, script writing, engineering and directing as well as for the services of our greatest artists. Dozens of skilled people may have cooperated in the production of one half-hour program, all for the same audience your teacher must face single-handed next day in an effort to make music more mean- ingful ! He has become his own producer, director, writer, announcer — his own everything. If he knows his business, he realizes how little interested this group would be in a mere discussion of lines and spaces, sharps and flats. They simply will not sit and sing one song after another with no sense of programming or dramatic sequence. The teacher must provide these classes with music experiences having real emotional drive and spiritual values, and that is a large order for either a teacher or a performer. Your music teacher, perhaps more than any other in your schools, must meet "outside" interests and standards which relate directly to his subject, General Sessions 183 and to the attitude of his students. He cannot supplant these interests on the one hand, or ignore them on the other. They are simply a part of the world in which he and his pupils live. It is up to him to learn how to adapt them to his purposes and requirements. During the past years, especially during the past ten, I have had extensive contact with music teachers from all parts of the country. I have heard many school programs, visited classrooms and rehearsals, and conducted school groups. From these contacts I have gained the greatest respect for your teachers and a considerable firsthand knowledge of their problems. Those with whom I have talked are making an intelligent and sincere effort to develop new technics which will successfully integrate their in-school activities with the out-of-school music world. They are eager to find anything which will help them make music more interesting and more useful to all their pupils and to their schools as a whole. Through the enthusiasm and persistence of their inquiries, they have es- tablished closer relations with the forces of the music industry. They have brought to our attention the fact that these contacts with the professional music world could create a most powerful and practical force in a great over-all program of music for youth. The Pennsylvanians have watched the development of these contacts and, in an increasingly active way, have taken part in it. During the past two years hundreds of music educators have visited our rehearsals and broadcasts to observe our production and programming technics. They have heard our glee club, soloists, and orchestra in all phases of rehearsal and per- formance. They have visited with our arrangers, writers, and librarians. They have had general access to all our facilities. They came singly or in small groups at first, but as their number became too large to be accommodated by daily rehearsals and broadcasts, we con- ducted several clinics lasting from three to five days. Last year the largest of these clinics was attended by 325 teachers and supervisors from thirty- three states. Although our work was presented to the larger gatherings in more or less planned fashion, the spirit of the invitation remained simply, "Come in and see how we do things. We'll be glad to show you how we go about it, and if there is anything you can take home and use in your work, you're welcome to it." Besides these contacts with educators, largely concerned with our pro- fessional routines, staff members of the Pennsylvanians have been detailed to participate in music education activities at many centers throughout the countr\'. They have traveled to university cainpuses to assist in the prepara- tion of national glee club competitions. They have trained and conducted choral groups for participation in programs of the Music Educators Na- tional Conference and its affiliated organization. They have organized and directed many community and industrial choruses. They have served as visiting instructors in college music education departments. Several of our group ha\e been graduated from us into responsible posts in college and conservatory faculties. One of the continuous assignments of our arranging st{if¥ is to create 184 American Association of School Administrators arrangements which will permit nonprofessional groups to present perform- ances with professional flavor. Two of their settings of familiar American songs, "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic," have been performed by literally millions of school children. On a number of occasions our radio program itself has been the means of implementing this sort of cooperation. Two weeks ago we performed four numbers as a special auditory rehearsal for the scattered members of the Utah All-State High School Chorus and the Southern California All-High School Orchestra. They will perform the numbers in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City on April 2 as part of the California-Western Music Educators Conference. Again, last week, we gave a first performance of a new work for chorus and orchestra as a first rehearsal for the Indianapolis All-City High School Group. They are to give it before the North-Central Music Educators Conference on April 12. Incidentally, for the same meeting, an- other member of our staff will rehearse and conduct a program by a five hundred voice chorus from the high schools of Indiana. I cite these instances of our participation in the work of your schools merely as a firsthand evidence that in-school and out-of-school music are not incompatible and that they can, and will, be combined in a great national program when their relationship is understood and used. These are ex- pressions of our interest in music education. They are forerunners of our plans for further wide and well-ordered participation in the immediate future. They are early evidences of what we believe will be an inevitable program of mutual endeavor in which the radio, film, recording, and tele- vision industries will earnestly support the work of the educators. I believe the work we have done so far to be of considerable value to your schools and your students. We are proud, as an organization, to have been able to play even a small part in the extension of your plans. As I have said, we expect to continue our efforts. But, quite honestly, all of our work with school and college choral groups and orchestras, and all of yours, is not accomplishing the job of building that great American music culture. Let's not deceive ourselves. It is simply help- ing to extend the culture of the few to a few more. It is the culture of the 20 percent to whom the gaining of a higher level of music culture is already a declared purpose. For the 80 percent, if, as we believe, "The song is the thing," this is not the song. The music of a truly national culture will be based not only on the music of the people, but also the music by the people. I am afraid it will not spring from the performances of our orchestras and glee clubs. Of course, the wish to have outstanding performing organizations is a most natural desire for both teacher and administrator. Such groups provide direct evidence of the teacher's skill and industry and, for the administrator, arc effective tools for the maintenance of school and community relations. They are a source of pride to everybody, including the nonperforming student who listens to them. But they are pretty exclusive clubs. Unfortunately, the higher the standards of these groups, the more selec- tive they become, the more rehearsal and teacher time they require, the less Generaf, Sessions 185 opportunity they permit for most of your students to enjoy music of their own makinjj;. I have been told that any plan which wouhl provide or{i;ani/.ed music par- ticipation for (ill your students would, doubtless, create new administrative problems for many of you. The teachers who are training the highly special- ized 20 percent can't take on the other 80 percent as an additional teaching load. The already crowded curriculum would have to be adjusted one way or the other. In my opinion, manv things will have to be adjusted one way or another it the majority of our students are to share in the music life of the school even to the extent of their native interests and abilities, it is a large under- taking and \\ill require some doing. It will demand many decisions which cannot be made by your music departments alone. They will be strictly "office" matters and, since this is strictly an "office" gathering, the initiating force of these decisions could be born here and now. It will depend upon whether you, the policy makers, agree with me that the premise of this dis- cussion, the problem I have outlined at some length, is a problem at all. Naturally, I believe that music participation for everyone not only con- stitutes a problem, but one of major importance. The basis for my reason- ing is not one of the laborator\ , but one of simple experience. IVIy contacts have been largely with people whose lives have already been enriched by a free, if unskilled, acceptance of music, and it is difficult for me to picture a life without it. Your psychology departments tell me that my belief is founded on fact. Best of all, many of you, whose interests and responsibilities have to do with education as a whole, have told me that the subject needs attention. For these reasons, I have mustered the courage to of^er a partial solution. There is no cure-all which I may leave in your hands and comfortably go back to my broadcasting with the feeling that the job is done, but I do have an earnest suggestion to make. It is a plan which I am certain will call for the simplest adjustments of your routine which are consistent with the size of the undertaking. To many of you, the plan may seem unimportant. Let me assure you that it is not unimportant. In my opinion, it is the only possible foundation on which total participation in school music can be built. I refer to assembly singing. I should like to ask you, as I have asked so many others, why there isn't more assembh' singing. When I inquire of teachers, a composite answer would be. "We don't have as many assemblies as we used to have. When we have assemblies, they are shorter and the principal takes up most of the time with his announcements and other school business. Consequently, there's no time left for singing." When 1 ask principals the same question, they are likely to reply, "It isn't altogether a matter of time. We could probably find time for the sort of singing the students would enjoy, but the trouble is the music teacher is not interested in informal large group singing. He wants the assembly to act like his a cappella choir and to sing the same sort of music. He won't meet the kids on their own ground." 186 American Association of School Administrators There are the two sides. In our consideration of musical expression for all and of integrating the music of the school with the music of the world, we will do well to remember these two statements: "There's no time left for singing," and "He won't meet the kids on their own ground." Yes, there are definitely some adjustments to be made. It is time for ad- ministrators and teachers to sit together in serious conference if they are to produce something which will be enjoyable and meaningful to the other 80 percent. The purposeful use of so simple an institution as assembly singing will hardly prove too difficult ; yet may prove both the starting point and the climax of a great school music program. The reasons for my championship of assembly singing are rather obvious. In the first place, there isn't too much you can do about total participation in school music except assembly singing or, at least, from a basis of assembly singing. Physically, it presents the entire student body; musically, it requires the use of only the human voice ; and psychologically, the individual singers tend to be unself-conscious in their expression and responsive to leadership. In the second place, and less obviously, it provides the basis of a musically democratic association of the 20 percent ivith the 80. Your choral groups and orchestras can make a tremendous contribution to your assemblies, not as featured performers, for once, but as group leaders and accompanists to the untalented many. Third, the assembly is the logical point of entry for out-of-school music, the original medium of its integration with in-school music. Since the extent and the enthusiasm of the singer's participation is purely voluntary, you let him sing rather than make him sing. At least at the outset, you ask him what he would like to sing, rather than tell him, I believe that in the beginning it makes little or no difference what he sings if he enjoys it. From this point, any cultural progress he makes will be an orderly ad- vance from the known to the unknown. Once he has become familiar with the assembly and has sensed the stimulus and freedom of mass music, you will fifid him receptive and responsible to new ideas. He will accept any music he can understand, whether it is fully familiar or not. Surely the literature of in-school music can provide such material. I have said that in any program of total participation your music depart- ment would need a free hand. That statement needs some amplification. Your department will need several free and busy hands. Your teachers will need not only the hearty encouragement and support of your office, but the enthusiastic help of their own music students and of the student body as a whole. A program of music participation for all is no one-man job. It is not that assembly singing demands special genius for its leadership. That is a popular notion which has been pretty badly exaggerated. Assembly singing requires enthusiastic and unself-conscious leadership. Believe me, a popular music student or even a cheerleader often does the job more com- petently than a mildly embarrassed or defensive teacher. Remember, we let them sing, not make them sing. Time enough for development when there is something to develop. General Sessions 187 The thing which will take time and effort on the part of your music department, however, is the planning of these assemblies. Unless they are conducted with good programming, variety, change of pace, and general showmanship, they lose quality or never acquire it. Unless your teachers have your continued support and encouragement as administrators, they will have a tendency to lose incentive. If the job is undertaken at all, it must be undertaken with the full understanding that it is a purposeful, vital part of the curriculum. It is not an easy job and will mean extra labor, extra co- operation, and possibly extra budget problems. But it will be worthwhile. \'ou will be performing a great service for the great majority. Perhaps the title of this discussion, "Our Kind of Music," has up to now suggested only our, the Pcnnsylvanians', kind of music. May I suggest that you reconsider it at this point? You see, the Pennsylvanians have no "kind" of music. We have only a way of presenting your kind of music. The music which I hope this discussion has brought to your attention is neither the music of the academician nor the music of the passing moment. It is, rather, that music of America, of the world, of all the people, which has been the ringing accompaniment to every great page of history, which has been at once their expression of unity and a creator of that unity. I deeply believe that it is an impoverished society in which "There's no time left for singing," and equally that it's a fainthearted crusader for culture who "refuses to meet the kids on their own grounds." I have stood before groups of singing children — black, white, and yellow. Christian and Jew, big and little, even the blind — and felt the power of their song. The multiplication of the small into the tremendous! I have heard music great enough to overwhelm the symphonist made by the un- talented, the tone-deaf, and the shy, music completely unconscious of a single listener, conscious only of its own pure joy in the making of it. I cannot but believe that in that kind of music we find our greatest opportunity and our sternest challenge. It is not the music of your splendid orchestras and choruses, or of our Pennsylvanians. It is the native music, the common heritage of all of us. In this sense, it is truly our kind of music. Let's foster and develop it, uncritical of the primitive quality of our be- ginnings, remembering only that we have within our hands a means of en- riching the lives of all those entrusted to our care. I thank you. DISCUSSION GROUP Wednesday Afternoon, March 3, 1947 EYE COMFORT AND EFFICIENCY CHARLES D. filBSON, CALIFORNIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION REPRESENTATIVE IN LOS ANGELES TWO or three jears a^o the title of this paper would have been "School Lighting" instead of "Eye Comfort and Efficiency." The emphasis would have been on "how much light should we have in various spaces for different seeing tasks" while today's emphasis is on "how well can we see and at what cost in terms of human resources." School lighting as a field of interest over the past years was confined for the most part to a footcandle emphasis. To many school administrators this footcandle emphasis came to mean artificial lighting systems, preferred light sources, more fixtures, more lamps, and faster spinning electric meters. Violently differing opinions and confusion represented many of the impres- sions received by the average layman looking for the truth in this important schoolhousing field. The new emphasis on "eye comfort and efficiency" starts out with the elementary factors advanced in the "school lighting" era but expands and refines them into a much broader concern which considers equally all lighting systems, oil light sources and embraces the total visual environment as the chief factor affecting not only visual acuity, but also the mental, phys- ical, and emotional growth and behavior patterns of students young and old. The "eye comfort and cflficiency" approach to this problem claims nothing new but emphasis, and the application of principles long known but seldom applied. This change of accent, however, is no trivial thing. It places the recommendations in this important field on a scientifically defensible and educationally acceptable basis. It removes illuminating engineering practice from the realm of controversial recommendations based on desirable quantities of light where there is little agreement among the "experts," and places it in a solid position defended by the noncontroversial principles of brightness and brightness-differences which find no serious opposition from any of the recognized students of the seeing-in-the-schoolhouse problem. The "eye comfort and efficiency" approach to this field not only establishes ultimate and educationally acceptable goals which are confirmed by all the informed researchers, but also makes it possible for every student attending school anywhere in the world to benefit from the recommendations sup- ported by this new emphasis. In this country alone we have thousands of schools that have no access to electric power and many more thousands which have no source of artificial illumination whatsoever. The first things recommended for conditioning the environment for visual comfort and effi- ciency have nothing to do with electrical equipment. Eye comfort and effi- I 188 1 Discussion Group 189 ciency in the average classroom tocla>' can be improved at least 100 percent without spending one cent for wire, conduit, outlets, fixtures, lamps, switches, or electric current. In fact, until other parts of the total visual en- vironment are properly conditioned, one stands a good chance of reducitiff eye comfort and efficienc> by augmenting existing lighting systems or install- ing new ones. Recommendations based on tiic "eye comfort and efficiency" approach arc set up in a priority order so that progress can be made toward an established goal by large or small steps. These steps are broken down into such small "risers" that a school finding only five dollars a \ear to spend in this critical field can put that small sum to constructive use and actually can improve the \isual environment, thus providing its students greater eye comfort and efficiency. Old schools or new schools, poor schools or rich schools, small schools or large schools, country schools or city schools — all can make real progress toward improving the visual environment by spending what thev can w^hen they can in a predetermined program toward an ultimate goal. Before one can understand the principles advanced by the "eye comfort and efficiency" approach, he must become familiar with a few lighting terms. The footcandlr is the (init used to measure light intensity. The quantity of light falling upon a given surface is measured in footcandles. The footcandlr meter is the instrument used to make footcandle measurements. Reflection factor is a second element to he considered, and is as important to a good visual environment as are footcandles. Light falls upon a surface which absorbs a portion of the light and reflects the remainder. This reflected light pro- duces brightness. The percentage of the total amount of light falling upon the surface which is reflected by the surface, is the reflection factor. For example, assuming an equal number of footcandles fall on all parts of this page, we find that the white paper reflects about SO percent of the light falling upon it, giving it a reflection factor of 80 percent, while the black type reflects about 3 percent of the incident light giving it a reflection factor of 3 percent. Brightness is the luminous intensity of any surface. Brightness may be created either by reflection or by direct transmission. The footlambcrt is the unit used to measure brightness. The average brightnes-^ of any reflecting surface in footlamberts is the product of the illumination in foot candles by the reflection factor of the surface. All brightness measurement for oui purposes can be translated into footlamberts. Tieing these factors together, we find that when a number of footcandles, say 30, fall on a task which has a 60 percent reflection factor, 40 percent of the original footcandle energy is absorbed and 60 percent of it, or 18 foot- lamberts, is reflected, causing the object to have brightness. It is this brightness which activates the seeing process. The footlambert, then, and not the footcandle becomes the prime factor in any consideration of eye comfort and efficiency. Any visual environment is composed of visual fields. These fields are areas of varying size centering along the optical axis. The central field is considered to be the same as the visual task. If the visual task is reading a book, then the page of the book is the central field. The small one-degree field lying on the center of the optical axis is the area in which all critical 190 American Association of School Administrators seeing is done. This area is called the focal field. The surrounding field ex- tends approximately 30 degrees on each side of the optical axis or line of sight. Thus, its total area would be approximately 60 degrees in the center of the total visual field. The peripheral field lies outside the surrounding field and includes an area approximately 120 degrees vertically and 160 degrees horizontally, centering on the optical axis. The "eye comfort and efficiency" approach takes into consideration all brightnesses, either transmitted or reflected, and their relation to the total visual environment. The conditioning of the total visual environment which is composed of the above-named visual fields, consists of reducing excessively high brightnesses such as those of light fixtures or direct sunlight, and in- creasing the excessively low brightnesses such as those of blackboards, dark walls, desks, and floors. This "balancing" of the brightnesses theoreti- cally should be refined until there is high brightness-difference in the task itself, such as those found between the best grades of flat white paper and the finest quality of flat black ink, while the brightness-differences between the task itself (central field) and the brightnesses found in the remainder of the total visual environment (surrounding and peripheral fields) are as small as possible. In the task itself we want high brightness-difference or contrast, while the brightness-differences between the task and all other areas within the total visual field are kept as low as possible. Strictly from the visual efficiency standpoint, the ultimate goal would be unity of brightness between the task and the total visual environment and a 100 percent brightness-difference or contrast within the task itself. Although "unity of brightness" may be considered a theoretical ultimate goal, an environment having absolute conditions of brightness-balance can- not be attained in a schoolroom. Unity of brightness, therefore, is not to be considered a practical goal for school areas. Any room conditioning, how- ever, which works toward this goal is a step toward creating a better visual environment. The remainder of this presentation will concern itself with the application of brightness principles to the schoolroom environment. The principles themselves are of no value unless they can be applied within the framework of average school conditions. The first major part of the room conditioning program deals with in- creasing and balancing the excessively low brightness areas. A painting schedule should be adopted to condition the various room surfaces. Ceilings should be finished with an 85 percent reflection factor, flat-white paint having either an oil or a casein base. White should be used because of its high reflection factor. The finish should be flat or nonglossy because a flat finish diffuses the light that strikes it without reflecting highlights that appear in a glossy finish. Field experiments have shown that brightnesses on the inside row of desks have been raised as much as 100 percent by doing nothing more to the room than painting a drab ceiling with flat white. Upper walls from the ceiling line to the wainscot should be finished with a minimum 60 percent reflection factor paint and lower walls from wainscot height down, including the baseboard, should he finished with a minimum Discussion Group 191 40 percent reflection factor paint. Finishinjj; entire wall areas from celling to floor with a minimum 60 percent reflection factor paint is considered good practice where maintenance conditions permit. Painting the baseboard to match the lower walls is necessary to eliminate a strong band of bright- ness-difference at a location that often falls well within the surrounding visual field of students reading or writing at desks. The intelligent use of color is essential for the prevention of an institution- like atmosphere. There need be no conflict between color harmony and a balance of brightness. Trim should be finished with a 60 to 40 percent reflection factor paint. The trim may be of a different color from the walls, but should retain the same reflection factor values to avoid objectionable brightness-differences. Desks and equipment finishes should have from 30 to 40 percent reflection factor. By desks is meant the whole desk including the top, frame, and seat. "Equipment" includes all the casework, shelving, supplementary tables, machines, etc. Floor finishes should have from 30 to 40 percent reflection factor. Light maple hardwood floors well maintained fall within this suggested reflection factor range. Light shades of tan and "marbelized" patterns have proved satisfactory in composition floor coverings because of their color and ease of maintenance. The practice of installing floors having decided checkboard patterns of color should be avoided. Chalkboards are now available with a practical reflection factor of 30 percent. Where conventional blackboards are installed, convenient means such as sliding panels should be available for covering the blackboard with lighter colored surfaces when it is not in use. A trend is evident in some sections toward reducing the chalkboard area in schoolrooms to an eight- or twelve-foot panel on the front wall. The second major part of the room conditioning program deals w^ith the reduction and balancing of the excessively high brightness areas. Daylight Control The sky, direct sunlight on windows, and the bright wall areas of ad- jacent buildings are the most common sources of excessive brightness, and upset the desired balance of brightness unless windows are shielded in some manner. The desirable features of a satisfactory window shield are: 1. It must exclude direct sunlight and admit as much light as possible into the classroom while at the same time presenting a surface of comfortable brightness. 2. Its position should be fixed and require no manipulation. 3. It must be easy to maintain. If shades or Venetian blinds must be used they should meet the following specifications: 1. Fabric window shades should be of the multiple roller type permitting inde- pendent shading of the upper and lower portions of the windows, and they should be made of highly translucent material of a color harmonizing with the wall colors. 2. Venetian lilinds if used should be of light colors to increase light reflection. ]92 American Association of School Administrators Artificial lighting Systems The following are points to be evaluated when selecting an artificial lighting system : 1. It should produce a uniform distribution of shadow-free and glare-free illu- mination with the intensities necessary to maintain an acceptable brightness balance between the central field and other surfaces within the total visual environment. 2. Consideration should be given to probable deterioration of efficiency in service, under prevailing conditions of school operation and maintenance. 3. Lighting fixtures selected should not produce a surface brightness that exceeds a 1- 10 brightness-difference for the surrounding field, assuming the line of sight to be horizontal. The function of an artificial lighting system in schools is to supplement daylight. It can play a big part in increasing the brightnesses of the darker areas but, at the same time, must not itself create areas of excessively high brightness. The first cost and maintenance expense of any artificial lighting system must be considered against the average number of hours per day artificial lighting will be needed in the schoolroom. NcM' school construction offers many opportunities to create a schoolroom environment that provides acceptable conditions for eye comfort and eflfi- ciency. New design trends make possible multi-source daylighting, adequate daylight controls, properly designed interiors, and acceptable artificial lighting systems. Real programs on the conditioning of schoolrooms for visual comfort and efficiency will be apparent in direct ratio to the interest and sponsorship evidenced by school administrators over this country. The administrator first must be convinced himself that the brightness emphasis is valid and then must insist that it is applied to his plants, old or new. The principles in- volved are as old as the light and eye partnership. They have been applied time and again and have proved their effectiveness. There are several specific steps school administrators could take that would facilitate this program. One relates to the reflection factor of school equipment. It will be impossible to make great strides forward until the manufacturers of school equipment (desks, machines, chalkboards, case work, etc.) make these items available in minimum 30 percent reflection factor colors. Floor covering manufacturers also should be requested for high reflection factor materials. Lighting equipment manufacturers should be asked to meet the low brightness requirements necessary if any significant brightness balance is to be achieved in schoolrooms. Architects should be en- couraged to work with designs that lend themselves more readily to the brightness emphasis. Maintenance schedules should be set up to keep present ecjuipment functioning at somewhere near potential efficiency. A program of conditioning schoolrooms for visual comfort and efficiency offers the school administrator one of the finest opportunities he will get to make a real, tangible, effective, and vastly important contribution to the total well-being of students young and old. Ofjiaal Records Official Records 195 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY To the President, Executive Committee, and Members: In accordance with the provisions of the constitution adopted at the New Orleans convention in 1937, the annual report of the activities of the American Association of School Administrators is presented herewith. It covers the period from January 1, 1946, to December 31, 1946. THE REGIONAL CONFERENCES OF I946 For the fourth consecutive Acar in the history of the Association, emer- gency conditions growing out of World War II made it impossible to hold a national convention in 1946. Early in 1943 the national convention scheduled for St. Louis had to be canceled at the request of federal authori- ties. In 1944 five regional conferences were held in Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Seattle. Regional conferences planned for Birmingham, Chicago, Denver, and New York in 1945 were canceled in January of that year by direction of the Office of Defense Transportation. A canvass of the situation by President Charles H. Lake and the Executive Committee, however, revealed the feasibility of again holding regional conferences in 1946 and at the meeting of the Executive Committee in Pittsburgh September 22 and 23, 1945, the following schedule of regional conferences was approved : Kansas Citv, February 20-22, 1946 Atlanta, Februarv 25-27. 1946 New York, March 4-7, 1946 Chicago, March 12-14, 1946 "The Unfinished Task" was the theme selected by President Charles H. Lake for all conferences. Official programs of these conferences, together with the speeches de- livered, were printed in the Official Report for 1946. The wisdom of the Executive Committee thus meeting the exigencies of the situation and taking the Association to the members was evidenced by large attendance at all conferences and the fact that 1946 membership rose to an all-time high of 6053. Exhibits were held at the Chicago and New York conferences. Plans for a national convention in 1947 were initiated at the Washing- ton, D. C. meeting of the Executive Committee December 1, 1945. Asso- ciation officers were authorized to negotiate with convention officials in Atlantic City with a view to holding a national convention there early in March of 1947. At the Cincinnati meeting of the Committee on May 11 and 12, Executive Secretary Shankland presented the invitation of Atlantic City to entertain the 1947 convention. NEA Business Manager H. A. Allan reported concerning the facilities of the city, the hotel rates, and matters pertaining to the exhibits. On motion of Mr. Lake, seconded by Mr. Corning, it was voted to hold the first national convention since 1942 at Atlantic City on March 1-6. 1947. President Hill immediately 196 American Association of School Administrators undertook plans for an outstanding program. The success which attended his efforts and the character of the meeting itself together with the official program are recorded elsewhere in this volume. THE executive COMMITTEE The constitution of the Association provides for an Executive Committee of seven members including the president, the first and second vicepresidents, and four members chosen by election who serve for four-year terms. The first 1946 meeting of the Executive Committee was held at the Netherland Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 11 and 12. Members present were: Henry H. Hill, Nashville, Tennessee, president; Charles H. Lake, Cleveland, Ohio, first vicepresident ; W. Frank Warren, Durham, North Carolina, second vicepresident; John L. Bracken, Clayton, Missouri ; Hobart M. Corning, Washington, D. C. ; George E. Roudebush, Columbus, Ohio. Present also were S. D. Shankland, executive secretary; past-presi- dent Worth McClure, University City, Missouri, executive secretary elect; Mrs. Gladys Harlow West, chief clerk; and H. A. Allan, business manager of the National Education Association. On motion of Mr. Lake, seconded by Mr. Bracken, the minutes of the meeting held in Washington, D. C, December 1 and 2, 1945, were read and approved. The annual report of the Executive Secretary was presented in writing, including the budget for the calendar year 1946. On motion of Mr. Warren, seconded by Mr. Bracken, the report was received and the budget, as proposed, was adopted. The budget was summarized as follows: Balance, January 1, 1946 $ 7,276.86 Receipts for calendar year 1946 64,550.00 Total to account for $71,826.86 Less disbursements for 1946 59,943.89 Estimated balance (in custody of NEA), December 31, 1946 $11,882.97 Upon recommendation of the executive secretary, and on motion of Mr. Lake, seconded by Mr. Bracken, it was voted to increase by double annual increments for the year beginning June 1, 1946, the salaries of the chief of the Educational Research Service, Miss Virginia H. Stephenson — Classification B-4, and two of her assistants, Mrs. Anne Curtis Brown — Classification C-2, and Miss Angie Carpenter — Classification C-2, with the understanding that all three should also participate in any salary benefits which may come to the employees of the National Education Association through adjustments made to meet the rising costs of living. On motion of Mr. Bracken, seconded by Mr. Lake, it was voted to elect Irby B. Carruth, Superintendent of Schools, Waco, Texas, as a member of the Executive Committee to fill the unexpired term of office of Henry H. Hill ending March 15, 1948, the vacancy having arisen through Mr. Hill's election to the presidency. Official Records 197 Mr. Lake reported that, pursuant to instructions of the Executive Com- mittee, he had appointed an exploratory committee to consider the problems of interjrroup education. The committee is to meet in Washington. D C May 24-26. President Hill proposed that a committee of nine to eleven persons be appointed to consider the objectives of the Association and to recommend practical activities which will best promote these objectives. On motion of Mr. Lake, seconded by Mr. Roudebush, it was voted to appoint such a committee to be known as the "Planning Committee" — the committee to report its findings to the Executive Committee and to make its final report to the Atlantic City Convention after approval by the Executive Committee. Informally, it was decided that the committee might hold a three-day meeting this summer and meet jointly with the Executive Com- mittee later in the year. Upon recommendation of President Hill, and motion of Mr. Warren, seconded by Mr. Corning, it was voted to pay Mr. Shankland $100 a month as secretary emeritus — this to be in addition to the $100 monthly reim- bursement for salary deductions approved by the Executive Committee in session December 1-2, 1945. The following topics were considered for the 1949 Yearbook: Health, School Buildings, Vocational Education, Character Education, World Citizenship, Safety Education. It was decided to postpone selection of a topic until the fall meeting of the Executive Committee. Secretary Shankland reported that the American Association of School Administrators had been invited to send three representatives to the "School for Executives" to be held under the auspices of the American Association of Teachers Colleges at Chautauqua Lake, New York, June 17-27, 1946, and that President Hill and Superintendent Jesse H. Mason of Canton,' Ohio, had accepted appointment. President Hill then named John L. Bracken as the delegate of the Association for a one-year term upon the Council on Cooperation in Teacher Education. President Hill announced that the terms of four members of the Edu- cational Policies Commission would expire on December 31, 1946. and that a joint meeting with the Executive Committee of the National Educa- tion Association was planned for later in the year to fill the places of: Francis L. Bacon, Edwin A. Lee, George D. Stoddard, and Mrs. Pearl A. Wanamaker. Consideration was given to the program of the Atlantic City convention. It was agreed that the convention should follow the general outline of previous national meetings with the understanding that three afternoons should be devoted to discussion groups and that the Association's Advisory- Council should be asked to suggest topics and speakers for these groups. On motion of Mr. Lake, seconded by Mr. Corning, the following resolu- tion was adopted. 198 American Association of School Administrators RESOLVED: That Worth McClure, Executive Secretary of the American Associa- tion of School Administrators, is authorized and instructed to open a deposit account for and in the name of this organization with the Union Trust Company in the city of Washington, D. C, to deposit therein funds of the organization and that said account may be drawn on only by checic signed in the name of this organization by its: Executive Secretary Worth McClure until further notice in writing to said Union Trust Company. On motion of Mr. Bracken, seconded by Mr. Warren, the following resolution was adopted : RESOLVED: That Worth McClure, Executive Secretary of the American Asso- ciation of School Administrators, is authorized and instructed to open a deposit account for and in the name of this organization with the American Security and Trust Company in the city of Washington, D. C, to deposit therein funds of the organization and that said account may be drawn on only by check signed in the name of this organization by its: Executive Secretary Worth McClure until further notice in writing to said American Security and Trust Company, and the said American Security and Trust Company shall not be required, in any case, to make inquiry respecting the application of any instrument executed in virtue of this resolution or of the proceeds therefrom, nor be under any obligation to see to the application of such instrument or proceeds. The Executive Committee of the American Association of School Admin- istrators met at the Netherland Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio, Sunday and Monday, October 20 and 21, 1946. Members present were: Henry H. Hill, Nashville, Tennessee, president; Charles H. Lake, Cleveland, Ohio, first vicepresident ; W. Frank Warren, Durham, North Carolina, second vicepresident; John L. Bracken, Clayton, Missouri; Irby B. Car- ruth, Waco, Texas ; Hobart M. Corning, Washington, D. C. ; George E. Roudebush, Columbus, Ohio. Worth McClure, executive secretary, and Mrs. Gladys Harlow West, chief clerk, were also present. The minutes of the meeting held in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 11 and 12, 1946, were approved. On motion of Mr. Corning, seconded by Mr. Roudebush, it was voted to award honorary life membership at the Atlantic City Convention to the following past presidents of the Association who had retired from active service in the field of school administration : Frank W. Ballou, Stratton D. Brooks, Charles B. Glenn, Ellis U. Graff, Joseph Marr Gwinn, Ernest C. Hartwell, W. Howard Pillsbury, and Payson Smith. Secretary McClure read a letter from Walter Swanson, vicepresident and general manager of the San Francisco Convention and Tourist Bureau, inviting the Association to hold its 1948 convention in San Francisco. Superintendent Curtis Warren of the San Francisco schools appeared before the Committee on behalf of Mr. Swanson's invitation. Canvass of prospects for the coming year revealed that San Francisco and Atlantic City were apparently alone in their ability to entertain the 1948 convention. After extended discussion. Secretary McClure was directed to poll the Advisory Official Records 199 Council as to the choice of location for the 1948 convention and to submit the results to the Executive Committee along with the final ballot. (Note: Canvass of the Advisory Council resulted in a vote of about two to one for San Francisco provided satisfactory contracts and guarantees of neces- sary facilities could be secured.) Chairman Willard E. Goslin of the Association's Plannin;^ Committee reported upon progress made and requested a joint meeting with the Executive Committee in December. On motion of Mr. Warren, seconded by Mr. Roudcbush, it was voted to hold a joint meeting of both com- mittees at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago on Sunday, December 15. Following a report by President Hill of voluntary contributions made by members for a gift for Secretary Emeritus S. D. Shankland to be presented at the Atlantic City Convention, President Hill was authorized upon mo- tion of Mr. Lake, seconded by Mr. Corning, to arrange for the purchase of an automobile. Secretary McClure referred to the previously reported expiration of the terms of four members of the Educational Policies Commission on Decem- ber 31, and pointed out that it had been impossible to find a mutually con- venient date for a joint meeting of the Executive Committees of the NEA and AASA to fill the impending vacancies before the expiration date. He proposed, therefore, upon the basis of his consultation with NEA Secretary Willard E. Givens, that the two Committees hold a joint breakfast meeting at Atlantic City on Sunday morning, IVIarch 2, for the purpose of filling the vacancies. On motion of Mr. Roudebush, seconded by Mr. Corning, Secretary McClure was authorized to join Secretary Givens in an invitation to the Educational Policies Commission members whose terms would otherwise expire on December 31 to remain in office until a joint meeting of both Executive Committees on March 2, 1947, at the Atlantic City convention. Secretary McClure submitted a letter from the National Committee for Traffic Safety inviting the Association to appoint a representative on the National Committee. President Hill thereupon requested Mr. Lake to serve; Mr. Lake accepted. On motion of Mr. Lake, seconded by Mr. Corning, it was voted to approve the writing of the customary NEA annuity for Secretary Worth McClure under the National Education Association retirement plan, effec- tive as of July 1, 1946 — based upon retirement at age seventy with corre- sponding deductions if retirement is before that time. A discussion of previously listed topics for the 1949 Yearbook, including in addition that of "State Department of Education Programs and Problems," revealed a preponderance of opinion that the general field of housing and equipping the modern school program would be the most timely. President Hill reported considerable progress in formulating general sessions programs for the Atlantic Cit\' convention, acceptances having been received from Governor Ellis Arnall, Dr. James Hryant Conant, Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey, Mrs. L. W. Hughes of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, Secretary of the Interior J. A. Krug, 200 American Association of School Administrators Reverend Howard C. Scharfe, Superintendent A. J. Stoddard, and NEA President Pearl A. Wanamaker. In response to his call for further sug- gestions, Ethel J. Alpenfels and Mrs. Eugene Meyer were suggested. President Hill also reported that topics had been selected and chairmen appointed to formulate eleven discussion group programs on each of the afternoons of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, March 3, 4, and 5. It was also voted to hold open house in the Ballroom of the Atlantic City Auditorium on Monday, March 3, from 4:30 to 6:00 P. M. A joint meeting of the Executive and Planning Committees of the American Association of School Administrators was held at the Stevens Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, 10:00 A. M., Sunday, December 15, 1946. Present were: Henry H. Hill, Nashville, Tennessee, president; W. Frank Warren, Durham, North Carolina, second vicepresident ; John L. Bracken, Clayton, Missouri; Hobart M. Corning, Washington, D. C. ; George E. Roudebush, Columbus, Ohio; Irby B. Carruth, Waco, Texas; Willard E. Goslin, Minneapolis, Minnesota; L. H. Bugbee, West Hartford, Con- necticut; W. W. Carpenter, University of Missouri; Paul H. Demaree, Anaheim, California; Philip H. Falk, Madison, Wisconsin; Henry L. Foster, Longview, Texas; Claude L. Kulp, Ithaca, New York; J. W. Ramsey, Fort Smith, Arkansas; L. E. Spikes, Burlington, North Carolina; G. Arthur Stetson, West Chester, Pennsylvania; Worth McClure, Execu- tive Secretary; and Virginia H. Stephenson, Recording Secretary. The Secretary reported First Vicepresident Lake was unable to attend because of an emergency board of education conference. President Hill briefly reviewed the reasons for the appointment this year of a Planning Committee. He reported that the Planning Committee had held a two-day meeting July 16 and 17 in St. Louis and that since July, the members had been in correspondence with each other. For the past two days the committee had been meeting at the Stevens Hotel for the purpose of formulating its final report to the Executive Committee. He then introduced Chairman Willard E. Goslin of the Planning Committee who presented briefly the highlights of the Committee Report and the reasons for its organization in the present form. Copies of the Report were then distributed and discussed in detail. It was agreed that the Planning Committee would remain in session during the afternoon in order that during the Executive Committee's con- sideration of the Report it would be available for conference if desired. The Executive Committee of the American Association of School Administrators met at the Stevens Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, 1 :30 P. M., Sunday, December 15, 1946. Members present were: Henry H. Hill, Nashville, Tennessee, president; W. Frank Warren, Durham, North Carolina, second vicepresident; John L. Bracken, Clayton, Missouri; Hobart M. Corning, V^ashington, D. C. ; George E. Roudebush, Columbus, Ohio; Irby B. Carruth, Waco, Texas. Following extended discussion of the Report of the Planning Committee, it was moved by Mr. Roudebush, seconded by Mr. Corning, and unanimously carried that the Executive Committee give pro forma approval of Parts I, Official Records 201 II, III, and V of the Report as presented with the further proviso that Item 3 of Part II be cleared first with the National Education Association. (This recommendation proposed a convention registration fee. It was found later to conflict with the NEA Charter.) It was moved by Mr. Corn- ing, seconded by Mr. Carruth, that the Report be printed as revised for dis- tribution and mailing to the membership prior to the Atlantic City Con- vention. It was further agreed that the Report be printed in such form to make it possible for those in attendance at the Atlantic City convention to vote upon the platform and various committee proposals item by item. It was agreed that the general recommendations listed under Section IV should be presented to the membership for their information along with other portions of the Planning Committee Report but that for constitu- tional reasons balloting would necessarily be confined to the various items contained in Sections I, II, and III of the Report. The secretary reviewed topics previously under consideration for the 1949 Yearbook. After discussion it was moved by Mr. Roudebush, sec- onded by Mr. Corning, and carried, that the committee approve the publi- cation of a 1949 yearbook in the general field of serving the modern school program through building design, equipment, and the use of newly de- veloped types of instructional aids. It w^as agreed that President Hill should formulate a statement of the problem, leaving the commission as in the past free to select a title. President Hill then called on Committee mem- bers to submit the names of possible commission members believed to be well qualified in the field to be studied. President Hill reported upon the general session and discussion group programs for the 1947 convention at Atlantic City, March 1 through 6. He stated that thirty-three discussion groups were organized and program personnel was practically completed. The Secretary reported the schedule of Executive Committee meetings at Atlantic City. Following recommendation of the executive secretary, it was moved by Mr. Bracken, seconded by Mr. Corning, and carried that special honorar- iums of $100 each be voted to the following staff members in recognition of the special services they have rendered under emergency conditions : Virginia H. Stephenson, IVIacie D. Templeman, and Gladys Harlow West. ASSOCIATIOX FINANCES There are at present two major sources of income for the Association. One is the annual membership fee of five dollars. Another is the revenue from convention exhibits. A third source of income which might be men- tioned is the Educational Research Service. Actually, however, the Service does not afford revenue because expenditures for service to subscribers have during many years been greater than the total receipts from the subscription fee of $25. The Association's fiscal year 1946 ended with a regular-fund balance of $15,432.81. This compares with the 1945 balance of $7,276.86. The 1944 year-end balance was $13,280.20. It will be noted in this connection that 1944 and 1946 were years in which regional conferences were held. 202 American Association of School Administrators Each of these produced sizable membership increases and some re'v^enue from exhibits. In 1945 neither conferences nor an annual convention were pos- sible. In that j'ear there was a consequent membership loss and no exhibit revenue. The membership figure for 1946 reached the all-time high of 6,053. It may be of some interest to compare memberships of former years in order to give an idea of the constructive work carried on by Secretary Shankland and the successive presidents and executive committees who served during the formative years of the Association. For example, in 1922 the Department of Superintendence, as the Association was then called, enrolled 1,263 members. In 1931 there were 4,013 members. In the depression year of 1933 the membership fell to 3,110. It rose to 4,470 in 1941, 5,644 in 1944, and 6,053 in 1946. Membership distribution by states for the last six years is shown in Table 1. See page 204. The net income from exhibits at the national meetings is divided equally between the American Association of School Administrators and the parent National Education Association on the basis of a long-standing agreement. The active work of organizing and managing the exhibits is done by the NEA Business Division. Revenues derived by AASA from exhibits during recent years are as follows : 1938— Atlantic City $19,441 . 51 1939— Cleveland 20,293.10 1940— St. Louis 18,900.98 1941— Atlantic Citv 22,666.62 1942— San Francisco 13,349.96 1943 — (No meeting) 1944— Regional Conferences 10,991 . 17 1945 — (No meeting) 1946 — Regional Conferences 13,764.45 The statement of receipts and expenditures which follows covers the calendar year 1946. It includes some preliminary expenses for the 1947 convention and all items of general expense. All bills were paid at the end of the year. Receipts for 1945 amounted to $44,558.69 and in 1946 to $70,499.24. The operating balance of $15,432.81 compares with a balance of $13,280.20 at the end of 1944 and $18,551.84 at the close of 1941. A detailed statement regarding the Permanent Educational Research Fund is given later in this report. Regular Receipts during Calendar Year 1946 Annual dues, 5,427 members, for year 1946 ?27, 135.00 Annual dues, 435 members, for year 1947 2,175.00 Interest — Permanent Research Fund 1 , 1 86 . 82 Yearbooks sold 10,104.69 New York and Chicago exhibits 13,764.45 Educational Research Service 15, 782 . 50 Other income 350.78 Total receipts $70,499.24 Balance January 1, 1946 7,276.86 Grand total ?77,776. 10 Official Records 203 Regular Expenditures during Calendar Year 1946 Regional Conferences: Registration $ 1,150.23 President's expense 293 . 95 Secretary's expense 330.20 Hall rentals 500.00 Group meetings 208 .71 Expense for speakers. .' 2,031 .45 Total Regional Conference expense $ 4,514.54 General Expense: Salaries, administrative unit ?1 2, 052. 30 Printing 12M Twenty-fourth Yearbooks 9,335.89 Printing 73^M Official Reports 3,165.52 Printing Research Bulletins, 3 issues 543.73 Other printing 1,552.27 Reprinting 3M Twentieth Yearbooks 1 ,919.00 Postage, express, and stationery 4,458.24 Mimeographing, multigraphing, typing, etc.. . . 1 ,215.76 Telephone and telegraph 332.05 President's expense 367. 14 Secretary's expense 872.39 Executive Committee expense 1 , 180.30 Audit Committee 123.24 Board of Tellers 316.31 Planning Committee 1 , 178.70 1947 Yearbook Commission expense 2,305.23 1948 Yearbook Commission expense 2,336.04 Bad debts and worthless checks 97.35 Educational Research Service, salaries 7,009.60 Educational Research Service, publications and miscellaneous 4,205.62 Retirement fund 441 .20 Supplies and equipment 220. 87 Educational Policies Commission 2,000.00 Atlantic City convention, advance expense. . . . 500.00 American Council on Education 100.00 Total general expense $57 , 828 . 75 Total expense for the year ?62 , 343 . 29 Balance December 31, 1946 15,432.81 Grand Total $77,776. 10 TABLE 1.— MEMBERSHIP BY STATES FOR THE YEARS 1941-1946 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS state Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia. Florida Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Alaska Argentina Bahamas Canada Canal Zone Guam Hawaii Iraq Liberia Mexico Philippine Islands Puerto Rico Total. 1941 Atlantic City 61 23 36 153 60 92 25. 66 21 63 10 331 101 82 95 49 43 23 76 174 231 99 40 140 15 48 4 37 287 18 417 63 16 251 55 29 401 42 37 15 44 227 24 24 75 28 46 129 13 1 1 11 2 4,470 1942 San Francisco 50 28 29 1.214 62 67 18 67 20 49 12 273 96 86 82 39 37 20 60 138 175 93 37 128 20 45 4 25 212 23 319 55 18 187 45 38 279 32 30 18 28 229 31 22 56 35 40 106 13 1 11 4,814 1943 No con- vention 48 34 27 254 57 57 17 65 24 45 13 270 95 79 76 35 36 17 55 150 175 88 34 119 22 41 4 25 206 19 319 50 15 175 41 27 274 29 29 14 30 191 23 21 51 34 36 102 11 1 1 11 3,680 1944 Regional meetings 85 38 37 244 73 94 26 73 30 150 27 483 140 128 180 52 38 28 77 202 334 120 43 223 22 52 4 39 276 21 414 89 20 253 72 53 391 40 71 22 55 275 30 28 76 141 53 184 14 3 14 5,644 1945 No con- vention 80 33 47 246 65 75 21 63 26 78 20 321 115 90 113 44 39 26 61 180 249 104 37 169 19 50 4 30 237 18 365 72 15 226 53 40 319 37 51 21 48 230 25 51 72 84 50 139 15 2 1 11 4,593 1946 Regional meetings 83 33 50 264 80 109 28 78 34 123 18 468 147 130 254 57 41 33 77 202 370 116 48 247 20 59 4 47 293 22 475 98 15 286 115 48 403 39 92 26 58 321 35 56 81 87 60 180 20 1 12 1 6,053 Note: The count includes 5,863 members who paid dues for the year 1946, 13 honorary members, 176 life or twenty-five-year members, and 1 six-year member. [204] Official Records 205 PERMANENT EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH FUND The idea of a permanent fund which should yield an annual income to finance important studies in education on a nationwide basis dates back to the Boston convention in 1928 when it was voted to appoint a com- mittee to make plans for creating such a fund. The committee set its goal at one million dollars. Depression conditions starting in 1929 just as the campaign was getting under way, however, caused its postponement and since then conditions have not warranted resumption. Through the gen- erosity of many interested members, however, the fund is growing slowly. A number of ten-year endowment insurance policies payable to the Asso- ciation in the amount of $250 each were taken out. Some members took $100 life memberships or raised substantial contributions by other means. The last of the insurance policies matured in 1941. Receipts from life memberships during 1946 amounted to $464. The principal amount of the fund now totals $33,626.62. Since the establishment of the fund, the average annual income rate from investment has decreased. For example U. S. Treasury Savings Bonds, Series G, now pay 2^^ percent interest which may be compared with an average income rate of slightly over 5 percent when the fund was first established. The Board of Trustees of the National Education Association reports assets in the investment account to the credit of the AASA Permanent Educational Research Fund on December 31, 1946, as follows: Par Value Book Value U.S.Treasury2^% Bonds due 1955-60 $ 150.00 $ 150.00 U. S. Treasury 2^% Bonds due 1956-59 3,000.00 3,092.28 U. S. Treasury 23^% Defense Bonds, Series G, due December, 1953 6,000.00 6,000.00 U. S. Treasury 23^% Defense Bonds, Series G, due November, 1954 500.00 500.00 U. S. War Savings 2^% Bonds, Series G, due September 1955 400.00 400.00 U, S. Savings Bond 23^%, Series G, due April, 1957 500.00 500.00 U. S. Savings Bonds 23/2%, Series G, due Jan- uary, 1958 3,000.00 3,000.00 U. S. Savings Bond, Series F, due May, 1957. . . 100.00 74.00 U. S. Savings Bond, Series F, due January, 1958 100.00 74.00 U. S. Savings Bond, Series F, due June, 1958 . . 100.00 74.00 Newport News City Street Improvement and Sewerage Construction Bonds, 5>47o, due 1950 11,000.00 11,285.00 Portsmouth Virginia, Waterworks Bonds, 5%, due 1948 3,000.00 3,160.51 Port of New York Authority, 3% Bonds, due 1976 2,000.00 2,017.50 City of New York Corporate Stock, 3%, due 1980 500.00 498.75 Cash on hand 2,800.58 Total $33,626.62 206 American Association of School Administrators THE AUDIT COMMITTEE The books and accounts of the American Association of School Admin- istrators are audited twice each year. In June, certified public accountants make a complete examination of the finances of the National Education Association, including all its departments. The constitution of the Amer- ican Association of School Administrators also requires that a committee of three members of the Department shall audit the accounts at the close of each fiscal year. The constitution further provides that its fiscal year shall correspond with the calendar year. The report of the Audit Committee for the year ended December 31, 1946, appears elsewhere in this volume. The members of the Committee are Superintendent Evan E. Jones, Port Chester, New York, chairman ; Superintendent D. R. Rice, Mentor, Ohio; and Superintendent B. L. Smith, Greensboro, North Carolina. PUBLICATIONS Major publications during the year 1946 included the OfKcial Report, issued in April, and the Yearbook entitled School Boards in Jction, dis- tributed to members in February. Among other publications is The School Administrator of which eight issues were mailed to the membership in 1946. There is increasing interest in this publication which practices brevity for quick reading by busy school executives. It is hoped that it may become increasingly useful as one vehicle through which the proposal of the Planning Committee for closer contact with members in the field may be realized. The Official Report carried principal addresses delivered at the four 1946 regional conferences. The annual report of Executive Secretary Shankland in this publication was of special interest because of its twenty- five 3'ear perspective and its stirring section entitled "Looking Ahead." Yearbook sales for 1946 amounted to $10,104.69. This figure reflects mainly the timeliness of the 1946 Yearbook and the continuing interest in the 1942 Yearbook entitled Health in Schools. During 1946 two additional printings of Health in Schools were necessary in order to meet the flow of orders. While sales for 1946 have reflected interest in the two yearbooks mentioned it should also be noted that there is a continued demand for yearbooks of previous years. Even those which were published several years ago are still being sold in sizable quantities. The 1946 Yearbook met a long-standing and insistent demand for a hand- book based upon the work and problems of boards of education and their relationship to the superintendency of schools. The commission which spent two years in the preparation of School Boards in Action, included out- standing schoolboard members, school administrators, and one director of a school of education. The 1947 Yearbook was named Schools for a New World by the Com- mission with approval by the Executive Committee. During the preparation of this Yearbook the emergence of atomic energy as a new source of power and a threat to civilization gave a new and dramatic turn to the work of Official Records 207 TABLE 2.— YEARBOOKS OF THE DEPARTMENT Year 1023 iy_'4 1*)JS 1^26 102 7 102,S 1020 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1936 1937 1938 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1044 1945 1946 1947 Title The Status of the Superintendent The Elementary School Curriculum Research in Constructing the Elementary School Curriculum. The Nation at Work on the Public School Curriculum The Junior High School Curriculum The Development of the High School Curriculum The Articulation of the Units of American Education The Superintendent Surveys Supervision Kive Unifying Factors in American Education Character Education Educational Leadership Critical Problems in School Administration S ^ How the Colleges Have Adapted Themselves Francis J. Brown, American Council on Education, Washington, D. C. What Assistance the Colleges Have Had and May Expect from THE Federal Government Ernest V. Hollis, Chief, Veterans Educational Facihties Program, U. S. Office of Education, Washington, D. C. Discussion from the Floor Pressing Issues in State School Administration Chairman, G. Robert Koopman, Assistant State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Lansing, Mich. Current Issues in State School Administration Thomas G. Pullen, Jr., State Superintendent of Schools, Balti- more, Md. Findings of the Study Commission of the National Council of Chief State School Officers on These Issues Edgar L. Morphet, Executive Secretary, Florida Citizens Commit- tee on Education, Tallahassee, Fla. Implications of These Findings for State and Local Administrators Warren W. Knox, Director, Division of Secondary Educarion, State Education Department, Albany, N. Y. Discussion Led by— H. F. Alves, U. S. Office of Education, Wasliington D. C. > ^ > John Guy Fowlkes, Dean, Summer Session and Professor of Educa- tion, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. Paul M. Munro, Superintendent of Schools, Lynchburg, Va. The Study Commission of the National Council of Chief State School Officers will meet in this room at the close of the session. Atlantic City Convention — Discussion Groups 249 The Planned vs. the Unplanned Curriculum in the Elementary TUESDAY ^rhnnl March 4 ^''^'*''^ 2:30 P.M. Chairman, J. E. Pease, Superintendent of Schools, La Grange, 111. AudUoriuni The Planned Curriculum Harold C. Hand, Professor of Education, University of Illinois The Unplanned Curriculum Virgil E. Herrick, Associate Professor of Education, University of Chicago, Chicago, 111. Panel Members John R. Barnes, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Grosse Pointe, Mich. T. J. Jensen, Superintendent of Schools, Shorewood, Wis. Millard D. Bell, Superintendent of Schools, Wilmette, 111. William Slade, Jr., Superintendent of Schools, Shaker Heights. Ohio Benjamin C. Willis, Superintendent of Schools, Hagerstown, Md. Current Problems of Boards of Education Chairman, R. V. Hunkins, Superintendent of Schools, Lead, S. Dak. School Boards Face an Acute Financial Problem Harry A. Burke, Superintendent of Schools, Omaha, Nebr. State School Board Associations Take the Lead Clyde B. Moore, Professor of Education, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.; Past President, New York State School Boards Association Balancing Local Functions and State Responsibilities For Smaller Schools L. G. Nourse, Superintendent of Schools, Norton, Mass. For City Schools Willard Spalding, Superintendent of Schools, Portland, Oregon Meeting the Teacher Shortage in the Long- and Short-Term View James Marshall, Board of Education, New York, N. Y. Discussion from the Floor TUESDAY March 4 2:30 P. M. Room 2 Auditorium Harvard Report and Education for All American Youth Chairman, W. C. McGinnis, Superintendent of Schools, Perth Amboy, N.J. Present.\tion by Alfred D. Simpson, Associate Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Edwin A. Lee, Dean, School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif. Edwin W. Adams, Associate Superintendent of Schools, Philadel- phia, Pa. • Discussion from the Floor TUESDAY March 4 2:30 P. M. St. Denis Room Dennis Hotel 250 American Association of School Administrators TUESDAY March 4 2:30 P. M. Rose Room Traymore Hotel Providing for Continuous In-Service Growth of Teachers Chairman, Willard E. Goslin, Superintendent of Schools, Minneapolis, Minn. Presentation of the Subject Virgil M. Rogers, Superintendent of Schools, Battle Creek, Mich. Discussion — Maurice R. Ahrens, Director of Instruction, Public Schools, Denver, Colo. E. N. Dennard, Superintendent of Schools, Marshall, Texas L. G. Derthick, Superintendent of Schools, Chattanooga, Tenn. L. P. Hollis, Superintendent, Parker School District, Greenville, S. C. Paul Misner, Superintendent of Schools, Glencoe, 111. Harry Study, Superintendent of Schools, Springfield, Mo. Gilbert Willey, Superintendent of Schools, District 20, Pueblo, Colo. WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Room 20 Auditorium WEDNESDAY New Trends in School Building Construction Chairman, Ray L. Hamon, Chief, School Housing Section, U. S. Office of Education, Washington, D. C. The School Plant as a Learning Aid Edwin W. Broome, Superintendent, Montgomery County Schools, Rockville, Md. Guide for Planning School Plants Wilfred F. Clapp, State Department of PubUc Instruction, Lansing, Mich.; President, National Council on Schoolhouse Construction Eye Comfort and Efficiency Charles D. Gibson, California State Department of Education Repre- sentative in Los Angeles Functional School Architecture Lawrence B. Perkinsj Perkins and Will, Architectural Engineers, Chicago, 111. Discussion Following Each Speaker WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Ocean Hall Marlborough- Blenheim Hotel Audio-Visual Aids Chairman, John Guy Fowlkes, Dean of the Summer Session and Professor of Education, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. The Curricular Aspects of Audio- Visual Materials W. A. Wittich, Director, Bureau of Visual Instruction, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. The Inauguration of an Audio- Visual Aids Program Lee W. Cochran, Executive Assistant, Extension Division, State • University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa Discussion from the Floor Atlantic City Convention — Discussion Groups 251 Hoic Shall We Group Children for Their Best Growth and Progress? Chairman, Abel A. Hanson, Superintendent of Schools, Elizabeth, N. J. Grouping as a Means of Achieving Social Purposes Curtis E. Warren, Superintendent of Schools, San Francisco, Calif. The Importance of Flexibility iiTthe Grouping of Pupils Fred B. Painter, Superintendent of Schools, Gloversville, N. Y. Grouping Children So That Teachers May Know Them Well Paul T. Rankin, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Detroit, Mich. Implications op Chronological Age Grouping of Children Willard S. Elsbree, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Co- lumbia University, New York, N. Y. Discussion from the Floor WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Room A Auditorium Spiritual Values in Education Chairman, Homer W. Anderson, Superintendent of Schools, Newton, Mass. Religion and Spiritual Values in Education Monsignor Frederick G. Hochwalt, Director of Education, National CathoUc Welfare Conference, Washington, D. C. Spiritual Values in Public Education John L. Childs, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. Spiritual Values in Education in the Los Angeles Public Schools Vierling Kersey, Superintendent of Schools, Los Angeles, Calif. Discussion from the Floor WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Room B Auditorium Crucial Issues in Safety Education Chairman, Edgar Fuller, State Commissioner of Education, Concord, N. H. Why Should There Be Definite Programs of Safety and Driver Education in the Schools? Francis L. Bacon, Superintendent, Township Schools, Evanston, 111. What Constitutes a Good Course in Driver Education? Milton D. Kramer, Assistant Director, Center for Safety Educa- tion, New York University, New York, N. Y. The Au'tomoti\'e Industry and Driver Instruction Norman Damon, Vicepresident, Automotive Safety Foundation, Washington, D. C. How Can the Schools Cooperate with Public and Private Agencies in Community Programs of Safety and Driver Education? Gordon C. Graham, Supervisor, Safety Education Department, Public Schools, Detroit, Mich. Discussion from the Floor WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Renaissance Room Ambassador Hotel 252 American Association of School Administrators WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Room 21 Auditorium Research and Consultant Services for School Systems Chairman, W. A. Bass, Superintendent of Schools, Nashville, Tenn. Consultancy Needs in the Fields of Finance, Personnel, Cur- riculum, AND Surveys Omer Carmichael, Superintendent of Schools, Louisville, Ky. Consultancy Services Which Institutions op Higher Learning Are Prepared To Render School Systems In the Field of Personnel Willard S. Elsbree, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. In the Field of Finance William C. Reavis, Professor of Education, University of Chicago, Chicago, 111. In the Field of Curriculum H. L. Caswell, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Co- lumbia University, New York, N. Y. Through the Survey John E. Brewton, Director, Division of Surveys and Field Services, George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tenn. Discussion from the Floor WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. St. Denis Room Dennis Hotel ]\ew Issues in Secondary Education Chairman, Harry J. Linton, Superintendent of Schools, Schenectady, N. Y. What Reorganization Must Be Made in the Secondary School Pro- gram To Prepare Young People To Become Adequate Citizens? G. Derwood Baker, Professor of Education, New York University, New York, N. Y. How May Secondary Education Be Extended To Meet the Needs OF All Youth? G. Robert Koopman, Assistant State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Lansing, Mich. What Responsibilities Has the Public School To Extend Its Pro- gram To Prepare Young People Beyond the Normal Limits of the Four Year High School? Fred W. Hosier, Superintendent of Schools, AUentown, Pa. How May the Secondary School Utilize Community Resources in Order To Broaden Its Program ? Herbert C. Clish, Superintendent of Schools, New Rochelle, N. Y, Discussion Will French, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. Lyndon H. Strough, Superintendent of Schools, Rome, N. Y. Paul J. Misner, Superintendent of Schools, Glencoe, 111. Atlantic City Convention — Discussion Groups 253 Out-of-School Activities and the Evolving School Program Chairman, Claude L. Kulp, Superintendent of Schools, Ithaca, N. Y. Should the School Participate in the Out-of-School Work-Ex- perience Program? Paul B. Jacobson, Superintendent of Schools, Davenport, Iowa What Services Can the Rural School Provide in the Field of Out- OF-ScHOOL Activities? A. K. Getman, State Education Department, Albany, N. Y. To What Extent Can the School Assist in the Development of OuT-OF-ScHooL Programs in Adult Education and Recreation? W. Howard Pillsbury, Associate Director, New Haven School Sur- vey, New Haven, Conn. Discussion Led by Paul L. Essert, Superintendent of Schools, Grosse Pointe, Mich. William J. Small, Superintendent of Schools, Niagara Falls, N. Y. The County School Superintendent and His Problems Joint Meeting with the Department of Rural Education Chairman, Virgil L. Flinn, Superintendent, Kanawha County Schools, Charleston, W. Va. Advances in County School Administration Charles E. Brake, Deputy Superintendent, Wayne County Schools, Detroit, Mich. Unfinished Business in County School Administration Jere A. Wells, Superintendent, Fulton County Schools, Atlanta, Ga. Discussion Led by — John S. Carroll, Superintendent, San Diego County Schools, San Diego, Calif. Consultant on "County School Finance" — Robert D. Baldwin, Professor of Education, West Virginia University, Morgantown, W. Va. Consultant on "School Building Problems" — John E. Marshall, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. Financing Adequate Salaries for Teachers Chairman, A. C. Flora, Superintendent of Schools, Columbia, S. C. What Constitutes an Adequate and Sound Salary Schedule for Teachers? Roy W. Cloud, Executive Secretary, California Teachers Associa- tion, San Francisco, Cahf. Local and State Responsibility in Financing the Program Edgar L. Morphet, Executive Secretary, Florida Citizens Committee on Education, Tallahassee, Fla. Federal Responsibility in Financing the Program Paul Mort, Teachers College, Columbia University WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Garden Lounge Dennis Hotel WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Solarium Madison Hotel WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Trellis Room Ritz-Carltou Hotel 254 American Association of School Administrators WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Belvedere Room Traymore Hotel On-the-job Training for Veterans Chairman, Paul L. Cressman, Director, Bureau of Instruction, State Department of Public Instruction, Harrisburg, Pa. The Efforts of the State Commissioners of Education to Facili- tate Veterans Training Thomas G. Pullen, Jr., State Superintendent of Schools, Balti- more, Md. On-the-Job Training Program for Veterans as the Veterans Ad- ministration Views It Colonel John N. Andrews, Personal Representative of the Admin- istrator, Veterans Administration, Washington, D. C. H. V. Stirling, Assistant Administrator for Vocational Rehabilitation and Education, Veterans Administration, Washington, D. C. Panel Discussion John A. McCarthy, Assistant Commissioner of Education and State Director of Vocational Education, State Department of Education, Trenton, N. J., Chairman E. F. Hurst, Supervisor of Instruction, Miami-Dade County Insti- tute for Veterans and Adults, Miami, Fla. Robert T. Stoner, Chief, Division of Industrial Education, State Department of Public Instruction, Harrisburg, Pa. Colonel Andrews Mr. Stirling WEDNESDAY March 5 2:30 P. M. Rose Room Traymore Hotel New Problems in Vocational Education Chairman, Charles E. Greene, Superintendent of Schools, Denver, Colo. The Responsibility of General Education to Vocational Education Harold Alberty, Professor of Education, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Community and Pupil Needs, the Criteria for Developing a Work- Experience Program Herbert B. Bruner, Superintendent of Schools, Oklahoma City, Okla. Work Experience a Must in Vocational Preparation Hamden L. Forkner, Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. Short-Time Training in Industry for a Large Number of Students in Seasonal Occupations and in a Large Variety of Occupations Howard L. Johnson, Principal, Emily Griffith Opportunity School, Denver, Colo. Vocational Education Comes to the Secondary School George F. Pigott, Jr., Associate Superintendent of Schools in charge of Vocational Education, New York, N. Y. Discussion from the Floor INDEX Alpenfels, Ethel J., 152 Amendments to the constitution and by- laws, 102, 103 American Education Awarci — Presenta- tion to James Bryant C'onant, 105; Manuscript of the Award, 107; Ac- ceptance of the Award (Conant), 105 Anderson, Homer \V., 151 Arnail, Ellis )j., 119 Athletics in education (Kieran), 109 Audit Committee, Report of the, 230 Automobile to Sherwood Dodge Shank- land, Presentation of, 148 Ballou, Frank W., 10 Benton, William, 55 Brethour, Eldon, 30 Brooks, Stratton D., 10 Charm, The Hour of, 114 Clark, Harold F., 81 Conant, James Bryant, 105, 107, 140 Country is this any way? Whose (Ar- nail), 119 Courter, Claude V., 91 Crisis: Time for an offensive program. The educational (Meyer), 131 Crisis and its impact upon education, The age of (Humphrey), 63 Dilemma, America's educational nant), 140 Drzewieski, Bernard, 115 (Co- Education and its relation to prosperity (Clark), 81 Educational reconstruction, Some firsts in (Stoddard), 42 Enrolment in the schools. Increased (Wanamaker), 19 Executive Secretary, Annual report of the, 195 Exhibit, The convention, (Stewart), 31 Exhibitors, Program by the Associated, 105 Eye comfort and efficiency (Gibson), 188 Federal aid for education (Arnail) 119, (Meyer) 131, (Taft) 166, (Wana- maker), 19 Federal aid to education. The sound basis for (Taft), 166 Financing education (Arnail), 119 Friendship hour, 54 Gibson, Charles D., 188 Glenn, Charles B., 11 Goslin, Willard E., 97 Graff, Ellis U., 10 Gwinn, Joseph M., 11 Hartwcll, Ernest C, 10 Hill, Henry H., 94, 151 Hill, Presentation of past-president's key to Henry H., (Anderson), 151 Honorary life memberships, Presenta- tion of (Shankland), 9 Hour of Charm, The, 114 Hughes, Mrs. L. W., 32 Humphrey, Hubert H., 63 Intercultural relations (Alpenfels), 152 International understanding: An unde- veloped human resource (Benton), 55 Kieran, John, 109 Krug, J. A., 115 Leadership, The challenge of (Wana- maker), 19 Life memberships. Presentation of hon- orary (Shankland), 9 Lighting in the schools (Gibson), 188 McClure, Worth, 151 Martin, Carlton, 9 Memberships, Presentation of honorary life (Shankland), 9 Memoriam, In, 9 Meyer, Mrs. Eugene, 131 Music, Our kind of (Waring), 175 New Jersey All-State High School Or- chestra and Chorus, Concert bv the, 175 Officers, 7 Parents and teachers. National Congress of (Hughes), 32 Past-president's key to Henry H. Hill, Presentation of, (Anderson), 151 Peterson, Harry, 175 Pillsbury, W. Howard, 11 Planning Committee — Brief statement on the (Hill). 94; Presentation of the Re- port of the (Goslin), 97; Report of the, 220 Politics in a democracy. The importance of ( Humphrey), 63 Present, On being alive to the (Scharfe), 11 Program of the Atlantic City convention, 233 Reconstruction, Some firsts in educa- tional, (Stoddard), 42 Report of the Executive Secretary, An- nual, 195 Resolutions, 225 [255] 256 American Association of School Administrators Salaries, Teachers' (Meyer), 131 ; (Stod- dard), 42; (Wanamaker), 19 Scharfe, Howard C, 11 Schools are ours, The (Hughes), 32 Securities, Certificate of list of, 231 Shankland, Presentation of automobile to Sherwood Dodge, 148 Shankland, Sherwood Dodge, 9, 148, 150 Smith, Payson, 10 Stewart, R. E., 31, 105 Stoddard, Alexander J., 42 Strikes, Teachers' (Meyer), 131; (Stod- dard), 42; (Wanamaker), 19 Taft, Robert A., 166 Talents, Five (Clark), 81 Teamwork in education (Wanamaker), 19 Tellers, Report of the Board of, 223, 224 Toronto Men Teachers' Choir, Concert by the, 30 Understanding, Building unity through (Alpenfels), 152 UNESCO's answer, Educational oppor- tunity for whom — (Drzewieski), 115 Wanamaker, Pearl A., 19 Ward, Arthur E., 175 Waring, Fred, 175 Warren, W. Frank, 55 » Westminster Choir College, 9 Yearbook, Schools for a Neiv World, Presentation of the 1947 (Courter), 91 Date Due 1 icho " OCT 2 2 '4:? WAR 3 '48 ' / 3 1262 04042 1090 J 9 ^7 'i)N II8R&H : /