Atlantic City CONVENTION 1948 Official Report— American Association of School Administrators OMAR BRADLEY r . D , v Security Belongs to You WALTER H. JUDD America's Expanding International Role We Need the World View WALTER A. WITTICH Using A udio - Visual Materials in the Classroom GERALD WENDT The Readjustment of Education to the Atomic Age OTHER ADDRESSES by H. Roe Bartle, Lyman Bryson, Erwin D. Canham, Eva Carmichael, Marquis Childs, James Lee Ellenwood, Oscar R. Ewing, Paul B. Jacobson, David J. Rose, T. V. Smith, R. E. Stewart, Herman B. Wells 'IE 6th 5 ItutiprHttg of $iat\bu Htbrartps ^n Library OFFICIAL REPORT The_American Association of School Administrators A Department of the Nationol Education Association of the United States 74 th ANNUAL CONVENTION ATLANTIC «,JKr CITY, N.J ATLANTIC CITY AUDITORIUM FEBRUARY 21-26 1948 1201 Sixteenth Street, Northwest, Washington 6, D. C. April 1948 Price $1.50 Per Col<\ 2/0- 4. 1BU» CONVENTION THEME The Expanding Role of Education CONTENTS GENERAL SESSIONS SUNDAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 22, 1948 Page In Memoriam — Pills bury ... 7 My America Is at the Crossroads — Hurtle 9 SUNDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 22, 1948 America's Expanding International Role — Judd 19 MONDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 23, 1948 The Convention Exhibit — Stewart 40 Appraisal of the Schools: Tlie School Board's Opportunities — Rose 43 A Job with Youth —Ellenivood 51 Newspapers and Schools Appraise Their Common Purposes — Canham . 57 MONDAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 23, 1948 Friendship Hour 61 MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 23, 1948 Concert by Boston University Band 62 Our Educational Stake in Germany — Wells . . . . 62 Security Belongs to You — Bradley . 72 TUESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 24, 1948 Education in a Democracy — Presentation of the 1948 Year- book, The Expanding Rule of Education — Jacobson 78 Education — An Investment in People — Etving 86 Amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws — Kulp 94 TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 24, 1948 Building International Goodwill through Teacher Exchange — Car rni< had 98 Introduction of Foreign CJutsis 105 Home Lessons from Educational Adventuring Abroad . ... — Smith 105 - WEDNESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 25, 1948 Page Using Audio-Visual Materials of Instruction in the Classroom — Witt'ich .... 115 How Good Are the New Tools for Teaching? —Bryson 134 WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 25, 1948 Associated Exhibitors Scholarship Fund — Stewart .... 146 Presentation of the American Education Award to Paul G. Hoffman —Stewart 147 Acceptance of the American Education Award — Hoffman 14S Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians 152 THURSDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 26, 1948 Presentation of Past-President's Key to Herold C. Hunt . . — Sexson 153 We Need the World View — Buck 1 54 America Must Choose — Childs 165 THURSDAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 26, 1948 The Readjustment of Education to the Atomic Age — W endt 174 Closing Ceremonies 187 OFFICIAL RECORDS Annual Report of the Executive Secretary 191 Report of the Board of Tellers 212 Resolutions 214 Report of the Audit Committee 219 Certificate of List of Securities 220 The Constitution and Bylaws 222 Program of the Atlantic City Convention 227 Index 253 OFFICERS, 1947-48 American Association of School Administrators President Herold C. Hunt, General Superintendent of Schools, Chicago, 'Illinois First Vicepresident Henry H. Hill, President, George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee Second Vicepresident Alfred D. Simpson, Associate Professor of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Executive Secretary Worth McClure, 1201 Sixteenth Street, Northwest, Washing- ton, D. C. Executive Committee 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 Paul Loser, Superintendent of Schools, Trenton, New Jersey I he President, First and Second Vicepresidents, ex offi> Cl'l ■ :■:"■:":■■": TRAYMORE TRAYMORE i * in k v;;;! fy COURTESY NATION'S SCHOOLS OUR POLICY — The American Association of School Administrators endorses no individual or group 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 Sunday Afternoon, February 22, 1948 The First (lateral Session of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention of the American Association of School Administrators convened in the Ballroom of the Auditorium, Atlantic City, Nezv Jersey, on Sunday after- noon, February 22, 194S, at four o'clock, President Ilerold C. Hunt, Gen- eral Superintendent of Schools, Chicago, Illinois, presiding. jQRESiDENT Hunt: I take great pleasure in calling to order this Seventy- ■^ Fourth Annual Convention of the American Association of School Ad- ministrators, with its associated departments. Our vespers musical program of praise and adoration is to be sung for us this afternoon by the Montclair College Choir of the New Jersey State Teachers College of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, under the able direction of Dr. Carl F. Mueller. (See page 228 for complete program of music.) IN MEMORIAM Tribute by W. HOWARD PILLSBURY, PAST-PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS President Hunt: Long has it been customary to pause during the first general session of our annual convention to pay tribute to those who have served in our ranks and who, during the year, have answered the final roll call. Dr. W. Howard Pillsbury, superintendent emeritus of the Schenectady, New York, Public Schools, and a past-president of this Association, will speak at this time in memoriam, with particular refer- ence to that great leader of our Association, Dr. Sherwood Dodge Shank- land, who just a year ago appeared on this vesper service program. To speak in tribute to all of the great leaders of our Association who have left us during the year, we recognize at this time Dr. Pillsbury. Mr. Pillsbury: Since last the American Association of School Ad- ministrators met here in Atlantic City a considerable number of its members has gone to "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." Some had enjoyed a brief respite from the arduous labors of an exacting profession. Others were stricken* while still in active service on the firing line. For us the living, it is altogether fitting to begin our proceedings with a tribute to the memory of these — our fallen comrades — who have fought the good fight, finished their course, and enriched us by their contributions to American education. Foremost in this group was our Executive Secretary Emeritus, Sherwood Dodge Shankland, In honoring him we simultaneously memorialize that [7 ] 8 American Association of School Administrators goodly company of lost leadership, his fellow administrators, whose fate he shared and whose achievements and qualities he so admirably exemplified. Selected a full quarter of a century ago to guide the destinies of a struggling Department of Superintendence, he provided a brand of leader- ship which became the direct cause in the rapid growth of the Department — a growth which has brilliantly justified the faith which prompted this venture. That small uncoordinated department has become the American Association of School Administrators, a well integrated power in American education. It has quadrupled its membership. Its annual convention brings together those who shape practices in American schools in numbers un- paralleled in any other profession. Joint enterprises with such organizations as the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Commission on Teacher Education, and the National Association of School Boards have obviated the danger of administrative isolationism. The reports of its numerous commissions and its long list of significant yearbooks have furnished rich content for administration as a profession. In cooperation with the National Education Association, the Educational Research Service has been firmly founded and provides authoritative, up-to-date information on administrative policies and prac- tices. Also in cooperation with the National Education Association, the Educational Policies Commission was created and the organized thinking of the profession became articulate throughout the land. Such achievements typify the growth and progress of our Association under the leadership of its first executive secretary. And yet, it is as a wise counselor and loyal friend that Sherry Shankland will live longest in our memories. Endowed with an uncommon fund of common sense he never lost touch with reality. A skilful planner and organizer, wise in the ways of men, he knew full well how to develop the initiative and resourcefulness of his colleagues. His steadfast sincerity, staunch loyalty to a friend or a cause, his outgoing personality, and extraordinary capacity for friendship irresistibly drew men to him and inevitably created a loyalty to his leader- ship. He attracted by his frankness ; he charmed by his courtesy ; he inspired by his selfless devotion to the cause which he served. Positive in his con- victions he was yet flexible in the means of achievement. He had a flair for public relations but an innate modesty which kept him in the background whenever possible. In conference he was a good listener, spoke seldom, was always constructive, usually laconic, and frequently picturesque. His boom- ing voice and blunt manner cloaked a surprisingly tender heart and warm sympathy. ( Possessed of such qualities he was eminently fitted to wear the shoulder straps as the chief administrator in the affairs of an association of adminis- trators. To him may well be paid the tribute written some two hundred years ago: Friend of truth, of soul sincere In action faithful and in honor clear; Who broke no promise, served no private end; Who gained no title and who lost no friend. General Sessions For us, who have been privileged to know him, no tangible memorial is needed. He will continue to live in our hearts and minds. Our Association is his living monument. Hut as we too pass on there will arise, as in Egypt of old, "a generation which knew not Joseph." For them this plaque will be hung in the hall before the headquarters office of the Association. On it they will read : IN MEMORY OF SHERWOOD DODGE SHANKLAND FIRST EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS 1921—1946 WISE COUNSELOR AND LOYAL FRIEND TO THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION May we stand for a moment of silence in his memory and that of our colleagues who have left our ranks during the past year. MY AMERICA IS AT THE CROSSROADS II. ROE BARTLE, SCOUT EXECUTIVE, KANSAS CITY AREA COUNCIL, BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI President Hunt: I have now the pleasure of presenting a personal friend as our vespers speaker. I do so with tremendous enthusiasm, as I know of no one better equipped by training or by experience to inspire us with the realization of the opportunities and the privileges that are ours today as educators. Such, in my opinion, should be reflected in our vespers. Dr. H. Roe Bartle, lawyer, farmer, banker, worker with youth, i> above all a humanitarian. His life has been one of service to his fellow- men. For two decades, the chief Scout executive of the Kansas City, Mis- souri, Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, where its program of advancement is foremost in the nation, Mr. Bartle has made his vibrant personality felt throughout our country as his heart and his energies have been directed to doing for others. He speaks to us this afternoon on the subject, "My America Is at the Crossroads." Dr. H. Roe Bartle. Mr. Bartle: My very dear friend, Dr. Hunt, and, indeed, key educators in this, my great America: With humility this afternoon I stand before you, for in my humble judgment there is no group in all the land as power- ful or as important as the group here assembled. This afternoon, I have been lifted to great heights as I have heard this a cappella choir; then as one of your distinguished colleagues paid tribute to those educators who eeared their personality into your Association in bygone years, I thought in terms of men who had made me a little cleaner and finer and better, because I had touched the hem of their garment, men in the field of education who had planted high idealism in my soul in yesteryear. I realize today that I am the product of education, a> arc you, 10 American Association of School Administrators and if I possess any great idealism at this hour, it is because men and women in the tender years of my youth paused to inspire me and to gear their thinking and their personalities into mine. When I think in terms of your very able and distinguished president, I must of necessity think in terms of you, for you likewise have dedicated your time and your talents to the field of education. And for the moment, I should like to pause and recall the lines that came from that great and that mighty pen of one, Webster, who must have described your working philosophy. I am sure he described the philosophy of my friend of long standing, Dr. Hunt, when he said, "If you work upon marble, it will perish, and if you work upon brass, time will efface it, and if you build temples, some day those temples will crumble into dust. But if you work upon the immortal souls of youth, if you imbue them with spirit, give them a just fear of God and cause them to love their fellowman, you engrave upon those tablets something which will last all through eternity." And on this Lord's day, as you, supreme centers of opportunity in the field of education, are here assembled for your vesper service, I want to talk about my America and your responsibility from the point of view of an uneducated youth. In the realization that today is the first day of American Brotherhood Week, and, furthermore, realizing that this is the anniversary of the birth of the father of our nation, I should like to start my humble discourse with the words that came from the lips of George Washington, those words in the form of a prayer, known today as George Washington's Prayer for Our Nation. May I read just a sentence or two? "Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection ; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to gov- ernment, and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large." My friends, I realize today that my America is at the crossroads. We are not riding the tide of victorious aftermath of war. We are not marking time until the world can readjust itself to normal. We are brought to a realization that as we go down the highways of life, we must think in terms of the human equation. Here we are, two and a half years after V-J Day, and there is no peace. The world is still filled with chaos and turmoil and strife on every hand. I, for one, am disturbed about the direction in which we may be traveling. On this Lord's day, I want you to think with me, if you will, as to the pathway that education may lead the youth of this, our America. My America is the hope of the world. In so far as the world's economic structure is concerned, we are the only hope for the world. Politically and spiritually, the world needs America, for we are the only hope of a greatly distressed humanity. Balance of power, flow of gold, revolution and re- birth, industrial control — none of these has proved the panacea and the pattern to help the world in its distress. Every such pattern may work in theory and on paper, but it falls short when applied to the human equation. Gen krai. Sessions I 1 Only in so far as wc keep faith with the hasic needs of mankind can we hope to huild and strengthen and create the America for which the world today has a crying need. Only through a practical program of applied religion can the joh really he done. I am not talking about the Catholics and Protestants and Jews; I am not talking about doctrine and creed. 1 am talking about human values, which form the Gibraltar foundation for any of the world's great faiths, and I am saying to you that any sound program of education must be able to give to youth today the ability to appraise human values. I know there is a God, not only because I personally am striving after Him, but also because of the striving and the yearning and the seeking of the rest of mankind. It is my firm conviction that the building of a new world can come only through an earnest desire to identify ourselves with the will and the purpose of the Almighty. It can be achieved only through individuals who have the mental capacity and educational training to fulfil an individual mission toward that end. The task of education in America and throughout the world is to develop such citizens. From the day that that youngest child in the kindergarten is taught to take his fair turn at the drinking fountain to the hour when the fully trained citizen steps forth into his adult role, the emphasis must be upon humanity. We must project a program of education which teaches human beings again to appraise human values. Wc must give youth a working formula, give them, above all, open minds and open hearts and free them from prejudice which blinds, tears apart, and always destroys. Knowledge for its own sake is powerless. Knowledge is but a tool of education. Its power is as a foundation for sound judgment — judgment that every man must make for himself as he seeks to appraise real values related to the human equation. Without knowledge, there can be no open- mindedness. Unless there be ensuing judgment and appraisal, knowledge can make us conceited and blundering fools. But if we can develop open minds equipped with knowledge as a tool of judgment, we have cause to give to humanity the right to live and to build a world wherein there shall be peace and goodwill among all mankind. Youth must be taught to have open minds in so far as religion is con- cerned. I could here proudly proclaim that I am a Presbyterian. I am proud of my church. I am proud of the faith of my fathers. And I would that every one of you would be as proud of your faith as I am of mine. But I desire to give to every man, woman, and child in America the same right I demand for myself, the right to worship Almighty God in the way I have been taught and the way in which I believe. One of the principal reasons why I have been willing to give the best vears of my life to the movement of the Boy Scouts of America is because that movement offers a code of living for youth, a code divided into the twelve parts of the Scout Law, which govern the words and the actions and the deeds of all youth affiliated with that movement. The twelfth part of that law is in my judgment the finest and most workable definition of sound Americanism. "A Scout is reverent" — not that he is going to be 12 American Association of School Administrators tomorrow, but he is today. "A Scout is reverent." He is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion. That appraisal of religion is honest and is fair. Oh, I detest that word "tolerance" in the field of religion ! I do not even like the word "tolerance." I crave for my America, as we are at the crossroads today, a spirit of religious fairness for all mankind. Tolerance is smug. No matter how passive it may be, it contains contempt. I want not contempt but respect for your religion as well as for mine. When I talk about religious fairness, I realize that, in the field of religion, so often our minds are closed. How true it is with youth at this hour ! I have been exposed to enough religious groups in my lifetime to realize fully that there are great and noble souls in all religious faiths, if only they are true to the faith to which they subscribe. Being a Presbyterian, the son of a Scotch Presbyterian minister, I have a right to be a Presbyterian. Father stood back of the sacred desk for fifty- five years and proclaimed the gospel as he understood it and believed it. Hailing as he did from the Old World, from Edinburgh, Scotland, I have a right to be a Presbyterian. But as a small boy, my father sent me to a Baptist boarding school and I enjoyed that Baptist institution. May I say quite facetiously that for the first time in my life, I realized that Baptists could really read and write, that there were fine, highly educated people in the Baptist church. [Laughter] And then, in picking a university, I happened to choose a Methodist col- lege, and while attending that Methodist college, being a poor lad and required to earn a portion of my way, I learned that the Disciples of Christ in their church needed a bass in their quartet choir and for two dollars a Sunday, I gave the Wesleyites the loudest bass that they ever had. [Laughter] It wasn't very good but they had their money's worth in volume. And in looking around for an institution wherein I might do postgraduate work, I selected a Catholic university and I sat at the feet of the Jesuit fathers for a period of three years and learned to love them and respect them not only as priests of the old mother church but as great educators. I returned home and the little village queen was an Episcopalian. For seven years, I bobbed up and down with those Episcopalians. [Laughter] They nearly wore me out in that particular church. If you please, Dr. Hunt, I'm not just built for Episcopal worship. [Laughter] But may I say this to you, sir, that in your church, you are going to make sure that everyone stays awake during the entire service. [Laughter] In the Presbyterian church, we care not as long as you are awake when the deacons take up the morning offering. That is the time that we are primarily concerned with. And may I add that I have had spiritual re- freshment in the Episcopal church. My daughter is an Episcopalian, and that is the true test. The best friend I have on this earth outside of my family is a Jew, and yet I, for one, have been criticized because I love a Jew. Men have General Sessions 13 said to me, "How can you love him?" I have never in my life seen him do a dishonorable thing. When Christians ask me that question, I can only answer and say that the Man we love, the Man we adore, the Man that we look upon as our Savior, was born of a Jewish mother. I have seen noble souls in all religious faiths. And yet, today we are running true to form, for as we analyze our America at the end of every war period, there has been a period of religious persecution, because men were true to the faith of their fathers. In the classroom, with the school administrators giving inspiration and counsel and guidance to classroom teachers, I beg and plead today for the brotherhood of man, for until the spirit of the brotherhood of man dominates the thinking and the doing of men and women in America, we cannot hope to give to the world the aid that it needs at this particular hour. Along with religious fairness, I would plead today for political freedom. I would that youth would understand fully that we live in a great nation that enjoys a particular kind and type of government, the finest in all the world. Having studied government in part, I have discovered that there are only two kinds of government. There is a government that uses its citizens as its servants, to wit, the government presided over by a Schickl- gruber, a Mussolini, a Tojo and a Hirohito, and even the government today presided over by Mr. Stalin. Then there is a second kind of government, and that government is ever the servant of the people. That is the kind of government that education and education alone can perpetuate. We must give to youth an understand- ing of the responsibilities of citizenship. I beg that it be built upon the basis of character, capacity, ability, instead of upon the basis of political party. I hope that every educator here is related to a political party. I, for one, rebel inwardly when taxpayers say that educators must not be related to the body politic. I, for one, believe that we must look to men and women in the field of education for guidance and inspiration in things that relate to the body politic. I hope that you are related to a political party. I care not what party that may be. Even at a vespers service, I could recommend an awfully good one to you but it would not be in keeping with the spirit of the occasion. I belong to a political party. I shall not even reveal the name of the party to which I belong. True, I was born in Virginia and I was reared in Kentucky and I was educated in Tennessee and I have lived in Missouri a long time [laughter], but, do you know, ladies and gentlemen, I have voted for some Republicans in my lifetime [laughter], and I am unashamed of those votes I have cast in that direction. For the life of me, I cannot understand how men and women can be more interested in the success of a political party than they are in the well- being of the state itself. [Applause] I cannot understand for the life of me how men and women can go to the polls on election day and put an "X" at the top of a ballot and vote that particular ticket straight, yellow dogs and all. Whv should I vote for a man wholly without capacity and ability, wholly without character, when on the other side of the ballot is a man 14 American Association of School Administrators who possesses unusual capacity and ability and will be true to a public trust? I would that more men and women in the field of education would give stronger leadership in the field of politics. That can be done only if you create for the morrow an open mind in the heart of the oncoming generation. Today, we are suffering in America from industrial strife. Today, there are many arguments on every hand between those representing labor and those representing management. May I illustrate exactly what I mean? As a public member of the War Labor Board in Region 7 for a period of four years, I sat on case after case, and, as the evidence was submitted and all of the record was closed, as the public member and the presiding officer, I would turn to my colleagues and I would say to the man repre- senting labor, "What is your vote in this case?" Invariably he would say, "I vote for the point of view expressed by labor. Again, it is a case in which management has taken labor and treated it unjustly." And then I would turn to the representative of management and I would say, "What do you think about the case?" and again I would see a man who was without an open mind, time after time, for he would say, "I vote for the point of view of management because here, again, I see racketeering in the field of labor." Until we can have men who represent capital and management with open minds and open hearts, and men who, by the sweat of their brow, earn their daily bread, and who likewise have open minds and open hearts, we can- not hope to have industrial peace in this, our cherished democracy. It can come only through a sound program of education which relates itself to the human equation. When we talk about open minds, you who are educators, I beg of you to keep open minds in the field of education, for, as a taxpayer and as a parent, time after time, I have seen educators who would say, "No, we have been teaching in this fashion for many years, and it is a proven method. We will not change." But today, with all of the emphasis at my command, I would thank my eternal God that we have educators who have vision and determination and courage, who have seen to it that youth today have an entirely different type of program in the field of education from the program to which I was submitted some years ago. I know that only with open hearts and open minds, in so far as educators are concerned, can we hope to turn out a group of citizens on the morrow who will go into a competitive world and give the leadership that the world needs at this hour and will need on the morrow. I would that in the field of education we could keep open minds in so far as vocations are concerned. I wish that it were possible for educators to dignify labor. I hope that hard work again will become an honorable institution in America. [Applause] When I Jook about or have youth tell me, "I have no desire to be a carpenter," and I inquire, "Why?" they tell me, "Because it is not a dignified vocation." And yet, the Lord found dignity in it, for in that fashion did He earn an honest dollar almost two thousand years ago. I have seen many carpenters who were more honorable than stockbrokers, who reared families that were finer and cleaner and General Sessions 15 better than the stockbrokers'. 1 would that it would be as honorable in America on the morrow for a lad to have callouses on his hands as it would to sit back of a mahogany, glass-topped desk, with a white shirt, and call himself an executive. And, finally, there is one thing I crave today above everything else. My friends, I want peace on earth and goodwill among all mankind, yea, more than 1 want anything else on the face of the earth. [Applause] I am not a pacifist, but I say to you that I have had all of war that I want, not only for myself, not only for my flesh and blood, but for generations unborn. I have not lived so long, and yet I can remember that my cherished democracy, my America, has been involved in four wars in my lifetime. I remember when my daddy went to the Philippines and I told him good-bye. 1 recall that my father and I together wore the uniform down on the border in 1916. On April 6, 1917, I raised my right hand and I thought that I was to be in a war to end all wars and make the world safe for democracy, only to find that madmen came on the horizon in just a quarter of a century, and we had a global war involving 98.5 percent of the world's population. The aftermath of war, we have felt. The price of war, we know. It has been said by the President of the United States that you and I and our fellow citizens invested 347 billion dollars to win the war — 347 billion dollars invested in destruction and a mere farthing for education! What you could do in the field of education with 347 billion dollars! You could insure the peace of the world for centuries to come with 347 billion dollars — 221 million dollars invested every twenty-four hours. ( )ne time, I sat down and figured out something in a little bank in which I am interested. We have nineteen thousand depositors in our bank, and, do you know, all of the money that those nineteen thousand indi- viduals and corporations have in our bank would have run the war for only sixteen hours, seventeen minutes, and thirty-one seconds? That's all! Everyone loses financially in a war, but the financial aspects are secondary. When we realize today that we have 1,400,000 lads who were casualties, boys who never again will be normal, either physically or mentally, the price we pay for war is tremendous; lads who never again will see the light of day, their sight totally gone, lads who will be in wheelchairs as long as they live, boys who will never leave their hospital beds, victims of war. Why? Because we do not have open minds. There were 328,000 of your kids that went out and they did not come back, and 108,721 little children last Christmas were Gold Star orphans because their fathers spilled their blood that we might be free men and free women. What a price to win a war! And now they are talking about World War No. 3. It seems to be on the horizon. And the only reason why they are talking about World War No. 3 is the fact that you and I are of a generation that will not have open minds. That is the reason why today I am pleading from this platform, with all of the energy at my command, gear your educational program in such a fashion that the oncoming generation will have open hearts and open minds. 16 American Association of School Administrators Let me give you just two pointed, understandable illustrations. Dick, great football star of Kansas University ; Dick, an Eagle Scout, a part of me ; the first man to return from the Southwestern Pacific theater of war. Dick came before a Rotary Club of four hundred leading business and professional men, and it was my honor to present him. I said, "Dick, I know you cannot speak as you used to tote that old pigskin down the gridiron, but just get up here and tell us what happened to you." Let me give you his story in one minute. Said Dick, "I was up fifteen thousand feet. My plane was shot out from under me, and, as I was para- chuting down, I remembered I was an old Eagle Scout and I knew I had to bring some of that training into my life very quickly. As I hit the water, I kicked off my shoes, tore away the parachute, rid myself of all of my clothing because of the heat. It was high noon and the sun was coming down with terrific heat. As I was treading water, I was looking for land. Finally I saw it and I started to swim only to find that I was in shark- infested waters. I vigorously would kick my feet and the sharks would go away, only to return, at fifty or seventy-five or a hundred feet. After swim- ming about seven miles, I arrived at an island. I knew not whether it was Jap-occupied or American-occupied, and so, very cautiously, I stalked about. Finally, I saw my first sign of life. Unfortunately, it was a Japanese officer but, fortunately for me, he was asleep." Said Dick, "I had never thought for one moment that I could take a man's life in cold blood, but it was his life or mine, and I found a rock about so big and I slipped up behind him and I dropped that rock on his head. It killed him instantly. I reached down to take off his shoes to put them on my bleeding feet, and as I started to run, I saw his ammunition belt and his pistol so I paused long enough to take off that belt and strap it around my waist, and then I ran. "For seven days and seven nights I lived on the berries of the island. I slept not. I was tired and weary and sick when I was finally rescued. And during that period of seven days, I encountered two other Japs but I killed them with the pistol I took away from that Japanese officer. And I have brought back," said Dick, "that pistol and here it is." As he sat down, four hundred leading citizens of my community stood and gave him a tremendous ovation. They clapped, they cheered, and they stamped on the floor. Then Dick's face grew white and he raised his hand and he said, "Please don't cheer. I want every one of you to see this pistol. I want you to hold this pistol. On the barrel, you will see there etched some Japanese characters which my intelligence officer told me stated that it was the property of the Japanese Imperial Government." "But," he added, "you will have no difficulty in reading the English, gentlemen, because you can readily see that it says on the barrel of this gun, 'Made for the Japanese army by the Company, U. S. A.' " Eighty-four percent of all the war materiel the Japs used against China for a period of four years came from your America, because we put the dollar sign ahead of our own flesh and blood. Again, in my community, I stood before the chamber of commerce of Gen ik \i. Sessions 17 my town and said, "I am protesting today the shipment of scrap iron to the port of San Francisco and to Japan." And as I concluded my address that day, I made this statement and I reckon that those words were put in my mouth by the Almighty, for 1 said, "Until we watch our step here in Kansas City and in America, some of the munitions of war and, indeed, some of the scrap iron that is Leaving Kansas City today will come back to this village and it will be found in the belly walls of our kids." I pointed out that that day twenty-one carloads had been shipped, the day before nineteen, the day before that fourteen, and for a period of six months, scrap iron had left my community. Then, as I left the platform, a great industrial leader came to me. He said, "Roe, I want to ask you why is it that you have high blood pressure when you talk to the chamber of commerce?" I said, "To what are you referring?" and he said, "You know, this scrap iron deal. You know Great Britain is going to sell it and if Great Britain sells it, America has the right to sell it, and if America sells it, you know full well St. Louis is going to sell it" — and, of course, in my town, anything St. Louis does, you can do in Kansas City. It gives you license. He said, "If anybody is going to sell it in Kansas City, my firm has the right to sell it." I looked at him and I said, "Well, I don't quite agree with you." He turned to me and said, "You're clear up in the clouds. You're too idealistic." I looked at my friend and I said, "I hope 1 am idealistic. I hope my head is 'way up in the clouds. But I pray my feet are down on a solid foundation, upon old mother earth." He said, "What would you have me do?" I said, "I would have you live the way you want to live on the Lord's day, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday." He looked at me and said, "Well, we will always be good friends, Roe," and he shook my hand and he went his way and I went mine. Two and a half years passed, and one night at the hour of eleven-thirty, as I returned home, Mrs. Bartle greeted me and asked me to go over to a neighboring community. I saw there this great, beautiful, palatial home that I had visited so often. As I crossed the threshold, instead of bein<: greeted by a servant, I was greeted by the master of the household. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he handed me a little yellow piece of paper, a Western Union telegram, signed by I 'Ho, the adjutant. And what did it say? "We regret to advise you," and the only child of that man, who had challenged me in my chamber of commerce, had spilled his blood in the Southwest Pacific theater of war. As I put my arm about him and tried to sustain him, I tried to give him words of encouragement, I tried to comfort him. Finally, he pulled himself together and he looked at me, and the very first words from his lips were in the form of a question. "Roe, do you reckon that any of the scrap iron that I shipped got Jim?" There is one Gold Star father who will pay any price for peace. In my judgment, if we want peace on earth, we must build a desire for peace in the hearts of youth today. It can be done only as we >:ear our thinking ami our personalities to the lives of youth who believe in us. 18 American Association of School Administrators Whereas I started this humble message with a prayer that came from the lips of the father of our nation, 1 should like to close my address in this vesper hour with another prayer. It seems that as the war lords of Japan, with all of their military might, had driven the Chinese army backward and backward and backward, the military strategists of China finally decided that what they needed was a slogan that they could give their men to drive the Japanese out of their homeland. They thought for a while as to whom they could secure to give them that slogan, and finally the only man they could agree upon was a teacher, a philosopher, a thinker, a doctor, and so a committee was appointed from the high command to interview the learned doctor. As they came to him, they said, "We want from your lips a slogan that we can give into the hearts of our army, stamp indelibly on their minds. We want it from you because all China loves you and believes in you." The old Chinese philosopher paused for a moment and then he looked his countrymen in the eye and said to them, "I give you not a statement nor a slogan. Proudly I say to you that I am a Christian. I want to give to you the prayer of my heart." With that, he threw his head back and looked heavenward and, calmly, as only a Chinese can be calm, he said, "O God, revitalize my China. But, O Lord, Lord, please start with me!" Today, we can find formulas on every hand for the world. We find them from learned individuals. But all of those formulas relate to somebody else, never to me, myself. Everyone is willing to tell you what should happen around the globe at this very moment. Many can tell you what should be done in the field of education. But always it involves others, never self. You who are school administrators today are America's human engineers, classroom engineers, and your colleagues in the field of administration will follow your example and your inspiration. The way in which America will travel for the next decade, yea, for the next century, depends entirely on the determination of this group assembled here today. What a task! What a tremendous responsibility! And so I would beg of you in this closing period, I would beg of you in this vesper hour, to paraphrase the prayer of the humble Chinese philos- opher and scholar and teacher, and I beg of you to make it your prayer today and tomorrow and all of the tomorrows as long as you are entrusted with the responsibility of guiding youth and teachers. I paraphrase that prayer in this fashion, and I would send it out as my own : O God, revitalize my America, but O Lord, Lord, please, please start with me! SECOND GENERAL SESSION Sunday Evening, February 22, 1948 injRESiDENT Hunt: Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Known * wherever good music is enjoyed and appreciated i^ the Westinghouse .Male Chorus. Here to sing for us this evening i> this famous musical organization under the direction of Mr. Rohert (). Barkley. -Mr. Barkley is a fellow schoolman, serving at present as the distinguished supervisor of music for the Wilkinshurg, Pennsylvania, school system. I am happy to present at this time the Westinghouse Male Chorus under the direction of Rohert O. Barkley. [See page 229 for selections hy the chorus.] AMERICA'S EXPANDING INTERNATIONAL ROLE WALTER H. JUDD, M.D., MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM MINNESOTA President Hunt: The theme of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Conven- tion of the American Association of School Administrators is "The Ex- panding Role of Education." As such, it complements and implements the 1948 Yearbook of the Association, which has that as its title. General and discussion sessions are expected to contribute to the realization of the ever- increasing responsibility that education is today called upon to assume. In no area is this of greater significance than in world affairs. Qualified indeed is our speaker of the evening to discuss America's ex- panding international role. Republican Congressman from Minnesota, physician and surgeon, Dr. Walter H. Judd received his A.B. and M.D. degrees from the University of Nebraska, served in World War I, held a fellowship in surgery at the Mayo Foundation, was medical missionary and hospital superintendent in China, entered private medical practice in Minneapolis, was elected to the 78th and subsequently to the 79th and 80th Congresses. Two years before Pearl Harbor, Dr. Judd attempted to rouse the United States to the menace of Japanese military expansion and to prevent the sale and the shipment of war goods to that nation. His is an eloquent and a persuasive voice and one that, like his life, has been dedicated to his country and to the fulfilment of its destiny in construc- tive world leadership. I am happy and honored in the privilege of presenting to this audience Congressman Walter H. Judd. Dr. Judd. Congressman Judd: Mr. President, Distinguished Officers and Guests, and Ladies and Gentlemen : Six years ago, I was privileged to speak to your convention when you were meeting in San Francisco, looking across the Pacific at the struggle which had just broken out at Pearl Harbor and on the far borders of that ocean. At that time, I was trying to help Americans understand what was involved in that war and to help us win it, because unless we could defeat in Asia the thing that Japanese militarism represented, and in Europe the thing that Hitler ism represented, there could be no chance for us ever again in our time to have a decent, orderly, secure world. [19] 20 American Association of School Administrators We had blundered into that war because we refused for so long to face hard facts. I am happy to have a chance to talk to you tonight when we are almost on the verge of blundering into another equally inexcusable situ- ation— if, in fact, we have not already gotten in so deeply that it is all but irretrievable. I don't believe it is. I think there still is time to prevent World War III. If, God forbid, it should come and if we should win the military victory, still we know it will be the end of all the things we have believed in and hoped and worked and prayed for. The plainest fact we face today is this, that we do not have one world, as we hoped we would have after World War II. We have two worlds. We will not, in my judgment, make a bit of headway at dealing intelligently with our problems until we recognize bluntly and frankly that plain fact. The world is split right straight down the middle. Politically, yes. Economically, yes. Ideologically, yes. Spiritually, yes. We do not believe in the same things and are unable to get together because we are not seek- ing the same objectives. But with that first fact there is a second fact equally plain, namely, that we cannot go on indefinitely, or even for very long, as two worlds. This planet is too shrunken, too contracted. Modern means of transportation and communication are too efficient. We are too interdependent for all sorts of commodities and critical materials to go on indefinitely split right down the middle. The two worlds must become one world. And that brings us to a third plain fact, that there are only two way? by which the two worlds can become one world. One way is by conquest ; the other is by agreement. Those on the other side apparently believe that the only way it can be done is by conquest. Mr. Stalin wrote years ago in his book on problems of Leninism that "it is inconceivable that the Soviet Republic can exist for an indefinite period side by side with western im- perialist states." He sees the split. He is not fooling himself. And we had better not fool ourselves. Then he goes on to say, "Ultimately one or the other must conquer." He believes that the only way the two worlds can become one is by conquest. You and I do not believe that. We are not going to submit to conquest of ourselves by them, but we haven't the slightest interest in conquest of them by us. What we want is, if possible, to get the two worlds together on a basis of voluntary agreement. Is that hopeless? I think not. We will succeed if we are able to get a set of circumstances where there is more to gain for both sides by coming together in common acceptance of certain mutually agreed-upon rules of behavior than there is by con- tinuing disagreement or by conquest. The way we have agreed upon for getting order and security on the street corner is by red and green lights. No matter how unlike the cars and the drivers, we have agreed we are all going to follow a certain pattern of behavior — we will all stop when the light is red, and we will all go when it is green. That doesn't mean we cease being capitalists and communists, Republicans and Democrats, Catholics and Protestants and Jews, rich and poor. We maintain our different ideas and goals, but we have agreed General Sessions 21 that it is mutually beneficial, it is to everybody's advantage for everybody to stop when it is red and go when it is green. Can we get these two worlds together on some such basis — mutual agree- ment as to the traffic rules by which life and intercourse, exchange of goods, personalities, and ideas are to be carried on on this planet? If we cannot, then we are doomed to another war, with no certainty our system can survive even if we win that war. Our greatest task is to achieve that agreement. That is the job of our foreign policy. Well, how have we tried to do it heretofore? The first way was to try to escape the world. That was a good way for a long time because we had two wide oceans. For three hundred years our forefathers could get away from the other half of the world merely by leaving Europe and coming here. But, unfortunately, we were so shortsighted as to invent things which destroyed the oceans. It is well to remember that we invented the steamboat, not the Germans; we invented the airplane, not the Russians; we invented the submarine, not the Japanese ; we invented the atomic bomb, not some enemy. We ate up the cake of our isolation with our own inven- tions— and still thought we could have the cake. Sometimes I wish we had a planet all by ourselves. Wouldn't that be lovely? But I know that even if we had a planet all by ourselves, we wouldn't be happy, would we, being Americans? We would lie awake at night, over on our separate planet, until we could think up some way to get over to this planet and start doing business with it. (Laughter) No, much as we would like to escape the world, we cannot get security that way any longer. We may as well say good-bye to that one permanently. Pearl Harbor proved this, if it proved nothing else, that no matter how much we want to ignore the rest of the world, the rest of the world is not going to ignore us. We can't escape it. The second way we tried, and which some people still advocate, was to appease the world, buy the world. They don't agree with us. All right, we don't want trouble, so give in to them. Probably the Communists don't really have the objective of destroying the basic freedoms in which we believe. Doubtless, they are just people who were brought up on the wrong side of the track, and have warped personalities. They didn't have the opportunity to go to the kind of schools that you ladies and gentlemen administer in your home communities, and if we just treat them generously and go the second and third mile as a nation, win, they will turn out to be just Jeffersonian Democrats. (Laughter) We followed that policy for a while — with disastrous results. Appease- ment of aggression on a national scale has never yet succeeded in bringing peace and freedom. If it has brought unity, it has been unity by conquest, not by agreement. One would hardly think we would be tempted to try it again. But some are advocating it. We want peace so desperately that we wishfully think if we yield, somehow or other that will bring us peace. We fear that not to yield will lead to war, and since we don't want war, therefore we must yield, especially if it is with our principles and other people's territory. (Laughter) 22 American Association of School Administrators But that method, historically, has never led to true peace. We wanted peace with Japan and so we tried to buy it. We said : "Well, we don't like what you are doing in China but, after all, you ought to have some more land, you ought to have some more territory. Besides, if the Japanese try to take China, they will bog down" — the same as some people are saying now about the Chinese Communists. "Don't worry about it!" So we tried to get peace with Japanese militarists by appeasing them with Chinese lives and territory. Did it lead to peace for us? No, it led straight to war. England and France tried to get peace with Hitler by appeasing him, especially with other people's territory, in that case Czechoslovakia's. Did it lead to peace for them? No, it led straight to war. Stalin tried to get peace with Hitler by appeasing him, especially with other people's territory, in that case Poland's. Did it lead to peace for Stalin ? You have seen in the documents released in the last three or four weeks the kind of appeasement he engaged in. But it led straight to war for Stalin. I have three little children. Sometimes they wear me out with their in- sistence upon this or that and I too am inclined to appease. I say, "Well, why not give in to them this time? After all, it isn't a very important matter and they're nice little youngsters." Does it lead to peace? No, it leads straight to war, every single time. (Laughter) One would think we had learned that appeasement does not lead to peace. Yet some prominent men seeking high office at the moment are saying Russia is a peace-loving democracy. When at last the sound instincts of the people rebelled against further attempts to get peace by sacrificing our principles and other people's terri- tory, Henry Wallace accused America of getting tough with Russia, of provoking her to aggressive action against other countries. That is plain distortion of the truth. Our change of attitude was the too long delayed consequence, not the cause of Russia's aggression. What are the facts? On V-J Day the United States had the greatest military strength any country in history ever had — in the air, on the land, on the sea, and under the sea. If we had had a single grain of imperialism in our national soul, we could have imposed our will. If we had had any designs on any country, we would have. They were all scraping the bot- tom of the barrel and our strength was at an all-time high. But what did we do with our military superiority? We tore it all to pieces and threw it away in six months. Does that look like imperialism? And yet we are the one accused of getting tough ! Somebody will say, "We could afford to do that because we had the super-ace, the atomic bomb." Well, what did we do with that? We said: "Russia, we will give that to you, too, subject only to the condition that any use you make of atomic energy be under the full inspection and supervision of an international commission, without any vetoes — just the same as any use we make of atomic energy, our own invention, our own Oak Ridge, will be under the full inspection and supervision of that same international commission, without any vetoes by us either." ( li:\ i:r.\i. Sessions 23 Actually that was the most radical, the most far-reaching proposal any strong, sovereign, victorious nation ever made in history. And it was made bj so-called reactionary, capitalistic Uncle Sam. How can anybody be taken in by charges that we are the ones getting tough? Look at the deed. We went further. We turned our face in the other direction while Russia destroyed the independence of half a dozen countries in Eastern Europe, whose independence had been proclaimed to the world as the reason for the war in the first place. We accepted her thesis that in order to be secure she had to impose her will on almost a hundred million people in Eastern Europe who are not Russians. We went even further. In order to assure her that we would not inter- fere with what she was doing in Eastern Europe, in flagrant violation of her pledges in the Atlantic Charter, we threw the Charter out of the window. One of its two authors, our President, publicly repudiated it, said it wasn't an official document, just some notes. Did such appeasement lead to better relations? No, they got steadily worse. Surely it is clear that appeasement is not the way to get agreement. What next? We finally woke up with a start just a year ago, when the British government belatedly realized that it could not carry all its commit- ments, and dropped the Greece mess in our laps almost on twenty-four hours' notice. We had to move on from the appeasement stage. If we yielded there to Soviet pressure, the Mediterranean would soon be a Russian lake. Because if Greece were to go down, Turkey would be outflanked and would go down within a year and all the Middle East would go with it. Then Italy and France would go. Actually Greece would have been taken over by the Communist minority last March, Italy in April, and France in May or June, if we had not acted. The time-table was all set up. Without vigorous help from us nothing could have stopped Russia's getting effective control of the whole Mediterranean area last year. Then England would have been neutralized, as she almost was at the end of the last war by the rocket bomb alone. She couldn't move against Russia under her own power, and she couldn't again be a base for us as she was in the last two wars. Then Germany would have been effectively encircled and the battle for Europe would have been over. For the crux of the struggle in Europe is which way Germany is to go. We know who defeated the Germans. But we won't know who won World War II until it is clear who wins the Germans — wins their minds and hearts. They occupy the strategically advantageous central position in Europe, they have great mineral resources, and they are 68,000,000 people with a real genius for organization, and unusual abilities along scientific and inventive and mechanical lines. They have proved twice in our lifetime they have the capacity to commit themselves to an idea, and, no matter whether it is good or bad, pursue that idea with singleness of purpose and with 24 American Association of School Administrators extraordinary efficiency and devotion. Which way are the Germans to go? That will largely determine the fate of Europe. Stalin couldn't get Western Germany by direct action, short of war. So he set out to get it if possible by a flanking movement beginning in Greece, across Southern Europe to the channel. If it hadn't been for our taking the strong stand we did in Greece — inexcusable as it was that we should have made the Teheran and Yalta deals which gave Russia the Balkans and the chance to put such pressure on Greece — the fact remains that in a few months all of Europe would have been under the control of Russian satellites. That, of course, was one reason General Marshall couldn't get anywhere with Molotov and Stalin at Moscow last spring. Why should they enter into any agreement that would limit their freedom of action with respect to Germany if within a few months, as they expected, they were going to have Germany in the bag — by our default? So when almost a year ago, we moved on from the appeasement stage to the resistance stage — the so-called Truman Doctrine — it wasn't just the fate of a few little Greek peninsulas at stake. The fate of Turkey, the fate of Italy, the fate of France, England, and Germany, the fate of Europe were at stake. That meant the fate of North Africa was at stake. And that meant the security of South America was involved. Remember, Dakar is only half as far from the bulge of Brazil as is the United States. Our own security, even in the Western Hemisphere, was involved. But the Truman Doctrine could give only a temporary respite. It was a sort of "hold that line" policy. It bought us a little time. When I was a boy out in Nebraska, we still had an occasional prairie fire. The first thing was to get out a team of horses and dig a furrow across its path. Can one furrow of moist, black soil stop a prairie fire? No, indeed. The heat of a blazing prairie fire is so fierce it will jump over even a wide furrow. But you can use that furrow as a base from which to start a back- fire against the main fire, and in that way you can stop it. The Truman Doctrine was merely such a furrow. From it we had to start a backfire, which is the principle involved in what has been called the Marshall Plan : help resist further expansion of the area of tyranny and dictatorship; at the same time, assist expansion of the area of freedom and federation. We must stop, if possible, the alarming spread of slavery and the con- traction of liberty which have been going on during the last twenty or twenty-five years. We must reverse those trends and resume the trends in the other direction that prevailed from 1776 to 1931. That is the idea behind the European Recovery Plan. We are now in the midst of a great national debate on the course we should adopt, a course which will determine our future for years and decades to come. It seems to me we can reduce the problem to two sets of calculated risks. First, if we don't promptly carry out some program of helping these European nations get on their feet, so that they become sound economically and strong in the sense of presenting a united military barrier to Russian aggression either from without their borders or from within, then they will General Sessions 25 go down one by one; and most of Europe will be under the effective control of the Soviet Union, and so will much of Asia by the end of this year. If we do carry out such a program, there is a chance the sixteen Western European nations can be saved and an area of freedom preserved from which it can perhaps penetrate back into Eastern Europe, until ultimately the Soviets will crack. Their whole system is so immoral, so cruel, that it must crack eventually. Hut we can't sit down and wait for that to happen. That would be like saying, "Don't worry about the flood. Floods always go down." Certainly, but I don't want it to take my house with it. A fire, too, always burns out. Hut that gives me no consolation if it first destroys my city. If we don't give assistance to these nations, there is no hope. If we do, there is hope. Therefore, we should do it. That is the way you would reason if you consider only the first set of alternatives. Hut there is a second set of calculated risks which cannot be ignored. They rise from the plain fact that we can't carry out this huge program without weakening the United States — at least temporarily — draining its limited resources, putting a severe strain on our own economy. It isn't the money that is so important. If we should be left without friends and allies, the cost in taxes for our own armaments each year would be greater than the whole contemplated cost of the European Recover} Plan for four years. We originally thought our budget for defense this year would be about six or seven billions. Before we were through, it was eleven. If Europe goes down, it will be eighteen billion by next year. And still more the next year; don't make any mistake about that. It is the drain on our resources that is most dangerous — the necessity to export materials and commodities already in short supply, the increase in inflationary pressures that raise prices and lower standards of living here, causing unrest and upsetting our whole economy. These are far more serious than just the dollars involved. If, by doing this, we can succeed in producing a compensating increase in the strength of those countries — which will add to our own security, reduce the burdens for our own armaments, and preserve and expand the area of freedom with which we can trade in the future — then it is a justifiable risk, even a sound investment. On the other band, if we don't succeed, and at the end of 1952 when American aid ends, those nations still go down, or are still economically unsound and insolvent, then all we will have done is endangered, perhaps destroyed our own soundness — and not have done them any long-term good in the process. In this kind of a world, somebody somewhere has got to stay free, some- body has got to stay strong, somebody has got to be able to hold aloft the torch of freedom to which people can at least look with hope until the dav comes when they themselves can once more rally to it. The United States i> their onlv hope and we dare not allow it to falter. I was in Europe last fall. Our committee visited twenty-two countries, 26 American Association of School Administrators and in each we talked with the cabinet or some of its members. One of the most instructive visits was in Sweden. The Swedes adopted a sort of Marshall Plan right after the war. They had come through the war years unscathed, in fact had prospered. They had a praiseworthy humani- tarian urge to help their neighbors, and a sense of special obligation, as have we, because they had been spared the horrors and the destruction of war and invasion. Besides it would be good business to get the economies of their customers functioning again. So they embarked upon a plan to help Norway, Denmark, Finland, and others recover. They made loans and grants which represented more in proportion to their national wealth than seventeen billions is in proportion to ours. But they soon found they got in too deep, and they had to come to us to bail them out. Well, if the United States miscalculates and gets in too deep, who will or can bail us out? That is the hard risk we cannot ignore. How can we resolve this second set of calculated risks? It seems to me that if we can be reasonably sure of better than a fifty-fifty chance of success, then we ought to make the effort because the risks in allowing Europe to go by default are plain and inescapable and exceedingly grave. If there isn't a better than fifty-fifty chance of success, then we have no right to take such a gamble. Instead we should do everything possible to keep our country strong, sound, and solvent — and hope the Soviet-dominated part of the world cracks up before we do. How can we estimate the chances of success? There are about five criteria which seem to me the most important, prob- ably the minimum that must be met if there is to be a better than fifty-fifty chance of success. The first is this: No matter how much we put in, the European Recovery Plan cannot succeed unless the sixteen nations in Europe are willing to make a far more vigorous and aggressive attack upon their own economic prob- lems, both individually and collectively, than most of them have been willing to make up to the present. Just to restore France as she was, to restore England as she was, to restore Norway and Italy, and so on, as they were won't be good enough because most of them were unsound before. The war merely revealed how badly they were running downhill, and accelerated the rate. Western Europe was not self-sustaining even when it was able to trade with Eastern Europe, which is the surplus area of Europe. Well, if Europe when it was all together was not basically sound eco- nomically, what is it now with Eastern Europe cut off? And how can the Western European nations recover if each of the sixteen insists on remaining a separate individual economic unit? We talked about this to almost every cabinet group we met in Europe. Frequently I said something like this: "Many people seem to think that the main reason America is strong today is just because we have a large popu- lation, great resources, and were spared the destruction of war. Those are important, but the single biggest reason is because of the system our fore- Genbr \i. Sessions 27 fathers had the sense to establish, a system under which we have forty-eight separate political units, but only one economic unit. "My state is Minnesota. We have high-grade iron ore, hut we can't get prosperous on iron ore unless we can get it with good coal. We don't have coal in Minnesota. Where is the coal? In West Virginia, a thousand miles away. "Why were we able to grow so strong? Because the iron ore from Minnesota and the coal from West Virginia can get together in Pittsburgh and Cleveland and Detroit and Gary, Indiana, without going through three or four sets of currencies and customs barriers, with delays, confusion, and loss of time and money at each." If the basic system which has prevailed in Europe is continued, it will be impossible for any amount of money or goods poured into Europe to cure the situation. It is like giving a sick patient palliative transfusions and no real remedies. He looks a little better after each transfusion but when they end, he collapses. Will the countries take the steps necessary to remedy their underlying maladies? Last fall when I was there, I had grave doubts about it. For example, I was more discouraged in England than almost anywhere else. We talked with Mr. Bevin and other members of the British cabinet. Mr. Attlee was away that weekend for a vacation. We talked, among other things, about coal production because that is the crux of the situation today, just as it was the major factor that enabled the enterprising Britishers of yesterday to build the greatest empire of all time. Someone has rightly said that England could become great because it is an island lying on a bed of coal. It was their coal that enabled them to make steel from their iron ore, to build ships, and power the ships, and send their products, manufactured more cheaply by coal than others could make them by hand, to the ends of the earth, exchange them for raw materials, bring them back, process them with coal, and send them out again. Besides they had surpluses of coal which they could export to Sweden in exchange for iron ore, to Norway for wood pulp and sardines, to France for textiles and silks and wines, to Italy for fruits, vegetables, olive oil, to Denmark for butter, eggs, bacon, and so on. Then England failed to mine enough coal. The production rate has been steadily falling for many years. One reason is that most of the best beds have been worked, the remaining seams are narrower and more crooked, and the mines are deeper, but there is still plenty of coal in England for two or three hundred years. Another reason for the shortage is that during the six war years, thou- sands and thousands of British boys, instead of following their fathers into the mines, went off to war. They encountered the hazards of battle but at least they could be in the fresh air. Manx of them are not willing to go back into the coal mines. But more important and basic has been the long-standing opposition of British labor leaders and miners to mechanization of the mines. That was 28 American Association of School Administrators understandable, though shortsighted. They remembered the long years of unemployment when they were on the dole. So they fought against any machinery that would increase production because a machine might put a man out of work. As a result coal production went down and down and the price went up. They didn't realize they were pricing their coal out of the world market as against coal produced by machines until they would have, not just a few miners, but most of the industry out of work. Our American miners by and large also opposed mechanization, but they had a tough leader who went into their conventions year after year, slugged it out with them, and won by sheer force of vision and courage. He cooperated with management to mechanize the mines until today the American miner produces four to five tons a day, while the British miner can seldom produce one ton. As a result, the American miner has become one of the best paid workers in the world. John L. Lewis gets enough brickbats so that he ought to have a bouquet when he deserves one. There is another reason for England's troubles. The Labor Party for decades advocated nationalization of the mines. That was supposed to cure all the problems. But could anyone expect the owners to put their money into improving the mines if they might then be taken over at a confiscatory rate? The different policies, economic and political, in our two countries have produced this illuminating set of figures: more than 70 percent of the net profits of American coal mines in the last twenty years has been plowed back into improvement of the mines; in England less than 20 percent. That tells the story. Why did capital not act in the normal way in England as it did in America? Because there was no incentive. Neither men nor money will work without incentive. The state then resorts to compulsion and it always ultimately fails. The labor groups in England focused their attention so completely on getting a more equitable distribution of goods and money that they forgot that first you have to produce or there isn't anything to distribute — except cold, hunger, and want. Like many reformers, in their emphasis on the weaknesses of the capitalistic system they forgot its very great strengths — its capacity to get production. The first requirement in England and in Europe is greater production. Lack of that is the cause of most of their troubles which it is proposed to be remedied by the Marshall Plan. How can they get the productive mechanism going? We asked Mr. Bevin what they were doing about this. He said they had just reduced the hours of work from 47 to 40 a week. They had promised it, and they had to do it. That is a strange way to begin increasing production. When he said, "We must have your help," we made bold to ask, "Mr. Secretary, do you really think we can go back to the people of the United States and persuade them they must work harder to save England than the English are willing to work to save England?" General Sessions 29 He asked for the gold buried in Kentucky. But far more essential for their recovery is the coal buried in England. On the basis of the state of affairs in England in September, I could see little hope. You can't save a patient no matter how much medicine you pour into him if he hasn't the will to do the things necessary for his recovery. The British have a magnificent negative courage. One always comes away with the highest respect and admiration for their unbelievable ability to endure. But what they need is more than negative courage to endure. They have got to regain a positive, imaginative courage to correct the situation. Contrast their present Leadership with that in Holland. One night we talked to the Dutch cabinet, and a leading minister said to us: "Imagine the difficulty of my position. 1 am a Eabor Party leader. 1 am a socialist. I have worked all my life to get my party into power so that we could reduce hours, increase wages, improve working conditions, and carry out the reforms for which we have campaigned. And then we come to power at a time when Holland is on her back, and I have to go to my own party's convention and tell them we can't shorten the hours of work per week. We have got to lengthen them. We simply can't carry out our promises. We have to put them aside until Holland is restored." He had political courage. He had the realism to subordinate dogma to facts. Holland's difficulties were about as great as England's but her leaders had the will and the courage to attack those difficulties positively and Holland has bounced back surprisingly. Look at the cabinet of Belgium. Of all the cabinets we visited, this one was to me the most impressive. The average age of its members is forty-two. Most are veterans of the war. The Deputy Prime Minister is about thirty- eight. The Minister of Labor is thirty-two. They weren't sitting down resigning themselves to their difficulties — just pulling their belts tighter. They were grabbing hold of the difficulties with imagination and vigor. As a result Belgium has recovered more rapidly than any other country, even though she was occupied four years. Fortunately, for whatever reason, some of the leaders in England woke up about September to the fact that the United States couldn't and wouldn't save them unless they were willing to work harder and more realistically. They modified their dogmas somewhat, set aside some of their program, instituted some incentives, and as a result every week since, with the ex- ception of the Christmas holiday, there has been an increase in coal pro- duction. There is real hope in the situation today as there wasn't last fall. Look at France for a moment. We talked to members of the French cabinet about closer economic cooperation in Europe. Mr. Ramadier was Prime Minister — a fine, genial old gentleman and scholar. He said: "Of course, these things ought to be done, we know that, but it is very difficult to do them. France is an old country and we have great traditions." Every- where we found that the greater a nation's past, the more it is hampered by its traditions. That, too, is understandable. We know they can't accom- plish all the changes overnight, or in a year, or in a decade, but they never 30 American Association of School Administrators can change at all, or even survive, unless they are willing to start, and start now. I ventured to say: "Mr. Prime Minister, we in the United States have some traditions too. We are not a young republic. We are the oldest of the republics. What is our number one tradition — our most deeply rooted and firmly held tradition? It is this: 'Don't have anything to do with Europe.' You expect us to reverse our strongest tradition, but you aren't willing to attempt to modify your own traditions." We talked about the problem of getting Germany back into production. It is admittedly a tough question. If we had been through what the French have been through at the hands of the Germans, we doubtless would feel as they do. I don't blame them for the way they feel, but the fact remains they cannot solve the problems with their emotions and fears. The Belgians and the Dutch fear the German military just as much as France does, but they are facing the problem with their heads, rather than with their hearts. They know if the Germans aren't permitted to go back to work at industrial production, turning out steel and machinery and chemicals and fertilizer, France too cannot recover, Belgium and Holland cannot recover — Europe cannot recover. To wreck German industry isn't just destroying Germany; it is destroying themselves, too. For the Ruhr is more than a German asset. The Ruhr is a European asset. Western Europe simply cannot become a sound economic organism until the Ruhr is put to work, producing manufactured goods to ship abroad to get foreign exchange to buy the foods and raw materials Europe must have to live. Western Europeans must find other ways than destruction of Germany to get the security they properly want and need. They are at last beginning, I believe, to wake up to the hard fact that their choice is not between allowing the Germans to produce or not allow- ing them to produce. Their choice is between having the Germans produce with and for Western Europe, or having them produce for Russia. If Western Europe and ourselves do not permit, even assist, the Germans to get on their feet to produce the goods of peace, do not succeed in tying their economy in with Western Europe's so it is more profitable for them to go along with the peaceful democratic nations of the world than with the totalitarians, then the unrest in Germany will grow until it becomes un- controllable by us, communism will win, and the Germans will be put to work with their production used by and for the Soviet Union. The Germans will either be working with the free nations, or they will be working for the Soviet. That is the only choice France has. In summary, the question in Western Europe is not whether they are going to get together or not going to get together. The question is whether they will get together voluntarily on some basis of federation, or be even- tually gotten together involuntarily on the basis of dictatorship. The sixteen free nations and Western Germany are now like our thirteen colonies were. Either they will hang together, or they will hang separately. Eastern Europe too was made up of nations that were very nationalistic. Bulgaria was very jealous of her complete independence, economically as General Sessions 31 well as politically. So was Poland, and so were the rest of them. Believe me, they are not independent now. The wheat from Bulgaria, the oil from Roumania, the coal from Poland, all go where the Soviet Union decides. They are already one economic unit and are moving rapidly towards, in effect, political union, whether they like it or not. With Russia's own great manpower and resources and those of the Eastern European nations work- ing as one economic unit, they have an enormous advantage over divided Western Europe. The western nations will either get together voluntarily and stay free, or they will he gotten together involuntarily and he slaves. We can't succeed in producing economic recovery, no matter how much money and goods and effort we put in, unless they themselves are willing to make a more determined collective attack on their problems. 1 think there is now a 75 percent chance that they will do it. They have gotten a glimpse of what goes on behind the iron curtain. They have seen the strength and intentions of their own Communist minorities. They desire freedom now as never before. I think they are willing to make the necessary effort — if they have hope of assistance. On this first criterion I think our aid program is justified — and necessary. The second condition necessary to give ERP a fifty-fifty chance of success is that Asia be kept free too, because if Asia is lost to the Soviets, in my judgment, we will lose ultimately in Europe also. As China goes, so will go Asia. I talked about the situation in China when I was with you last, six years ago. Today, as then, the key question is not whether we are going to help the Chinese ; it is whether we are going to be able to keep the Chinese free and on our side in the struggle between the two worlds. I am willing to hazard the prediction that future historians will agree that World War II from the beginning was a war more than anything else to determine who is going to control the development of Asia. Suppose we go into the Marshall Plan in Europe and we succeed even better than anybody expects. What do we have? Still two worlds: on one side Russia with her satellites; and on the other these sixteen countries of Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and a few others — two great armed camps. Who holds the balance of power? The billion and a quarter people who live in Asia. The crucial question of the twentieth century is this: Which way are the people of Asia going to go? With the free world, as overwhelmingly they prefer? Or in helplessness and despair with the totalitarian police state world ? Lenin understood that. He wrote about 1921 that the final decision would be made by the millions in Asia. In contrast, our government's action, or inaction, indicates it considers that what happens in Asia is of relatively little or no concern to us. Some of our leaders have systematically built up and encouraged the widely held attitude that if the Chinese gov- ernment— exhausted by eight years of war against Japan and two against a Communist rebellion — can't solve it> problems, let the Communists take over. 32 American Association of School Administrators But for what did we fight the last war, pray tell? If China and Asia are not to be free, then it would have been better for us to have them under Japan, rather than under Russia. If China is not to be free, then the war against Japan was not only useless, it was criminal — because we are left with less security than before we resisted Japan. If Russia is to be the strongest power in Europe, it should have been better for us to have Japan dominant in Asia, rather than to have Russia the strongest power in both Europe and Asia. One hundred thousand American boys died to win victory in the Pacific and it is all but thrown away in two and a half years by bungling, or worse, in our own government, especially in our own State Department. When in history did a nation ever lose so much as we have lost by drift, indecision, default, and folly since V-J Day? If China doesn't have the right kind of help from us quickly, she will collapse or be taken over by the Communists, just as Greece, Italy, and France would have, months ago, if they had not had very decisive help — and as they and others will still collapse without help from us. The State Department spokesmen say these European countries can't recover without help. Then they say that we can't help China until she recovers! That is precisely like saying to a desperately sick man, "You get well first and then we'll give you the penicillin." But China cannot recover until she has help. Conditions are indeed bad there. During every prolonged invasion any- where there is a breakdown of morals and of morale, along with economic and political deterioration. Our own South didn't look very good, either, after Sherman got through with it. It took fifty years to recover from one or two years of invasion. But the Chinese had eight years of invasion and occupation by the Japanese — eight years of disruption of their economy, their communications, their society. Eight years in which their people were taught that the ancient vices were now virtues, that it was patriotic and therefore honorable to cheat and steal and defraud the invader. Then the war ended and some Americans naively imagined those new habits could be reversed overnight — just like turning off the faucet that gives hot water and turning on another and getting cold water. China has got to have effective help quickly or it cannot resist the Com- munist inroads at a time when the government and the economy are so weakened. If China goes down, then Russia will have control, through her ruthlessly efficient Chinese Communist fifth column, of the greatest body of manpower on earth, occupying the strategically advantageous cen- tral position — the hub — in Asia, just as Germany is the hub in Europe. Then the rest of East Asia can be taken under the Soviet wing almost at will. The assassination of Mr. Gandhi removes almost the last remaining bulwark in that land against extreme confusion which would leave the country so divided and chaotic that a disciplined handful of Communists with a program of attractive promises can take over. In no country they General Sessions 33 have seized does the hard core of Communist rulers constitute more than 2 or 3 percent of the people. Then Korea will go. Three months ago in Korea 1 talked one night to Mr. Kim Koo, who from about 1905 to 1945 was the head of the Korean government-in-exile in China. After V-J Day, he was able to come back to Korea. I said to him: "What should America do now? We have delayed two years hoping we could get agreement with the Russians that would reunite Korea, but cooperation with them hasn't worked here any better than any- where alse. Should we delay longer, waiting for the UN Commission to see what it can do? Should we go ahead in South Korea anyway, hold elec- tions, set up a defense force and try to get the country on its feet and with- draw our forces? Or what?" He studied a minute and then said: "It doesn't make any difference what you do now. There isn't any way to get Korea so that she can be in- dependent and secure and self-sustaining until you solve the Communist problem across the border in Manchuria." , He knows that if Russia controls Manchuria, the Communists, when we leave Korea, will take it over too. Japan also will go. I talked one night for an hour and a half with General MacArthur, one of the greatest men I have ever met. He said he was no longer worried about Japan as such. What kept him awake at night, he said, is the situation in China. All we do in Japan will stand or fall on what happens in China. Japan's problem now is basically economic. She simply doesn't have the raw materials to enable her to live without access to those of Manchuria, China, and other parts of Asia. She must either be sup- ported indefinitely by us, or she must be able to restore much of her prewar pattern of trade with the Asiatic continent which she can never do if it is kept in chaos or is cut off by the iron curtain, as North Korea is cut off from South Korea and Eastern Europe from Western Europe. So we have either got to go back on our pledges to Japan, turn over the Japanese to Russian control and abandon the Western Pacific, or else we have got to subsidize Japan with hundreds of millions of your dollars each year. Furthermore we must defend her with your boys. IVe disarmed Japan. We wrote into her new constitution she never again can go to war. Therefore she can't have an army. What happens when we walk out ? Why, of course, the Soviets through their stooges take over. The Japanese are realistic. They are about to write us off as a bunch of politically immature incompetents when it comes to handling our foreign relations. They are resigning themselves to what now seems to them almost inevitable. Then the Philippines will go. Let no one imagine the Philippine Republic can ever become self-sustaining or secure, or long remain free if the continent off which it lies and on which it must depend for most of its future trade is controlled by the Soviets. Still further, how can the Marshall Plan get England and Holland on their own feet and off the American taxpayers' back if East Asia is under 34 American Association of School Administrators the Soviets? They would not have been solvent before without their trade with the Far East. It was its tin, rubber, spices, oil, etc., which gave them most of the dollars they had then and lack of which forces us to supply them now. Does anyone think we are going to be able to stop subsidizing the British and the Netherlands in 1952 if they have not been able to restore, on a mutually beneficial basis, something like their prewar pattern of trade Avith those areas formerly their colonies? Most important of all, Russia will have a far better chance of defeating the recovery program in Europe if she can get China first and then East Asia under her control so she can focus her efforts more boldly and aggres- sively against the recovery program in Europe. We seem intent on making the same mistake a second time in one decade — the mistake of thinking that what happens in Europe is more important to us than what happens in Asia ; or thinking that events in Asia are less likely to get us into war than those in Europe. But we did not get into the last war in Europe. Hitler did not move against us until Japan had attacked us so he knew we would have to fight a two-front war. And Japan did not attack, us until she thought she had China broken so she wouldn't have to fight a two-front war. The tough men in the Kremlin are hardly so dumb as to get themselves into a two-front war. They are most unlikely to risk a showdown with us in Europe unless they can first get satellites and security along their Asiatic border so that if war comes they won't have to fight on two fronts. It may well be that our single best hope of preventing World War III is to keep Russia compelled to divide her forces, her attention, her efforts between her east and her west. If she can beguile us into looking in the other direction until China goes down, as all the left wingers and their dupes have tried for several years, and successfully, to persuade us to do, then Russia can concentrate all her attention and her efforts on defeating recovery in Europe, which she has officially announced she is determined to do. My guess is that under such circumstances she can probably succeed. I don't like this conclusion but I cannot escape it. So our choice in Asia is not between helping the present Chinese govern- ment, and something better. I wish it were. Our choice is between the Chinese government and the Communists — which is infinitely worse. Right after Pearl Harbor the United States Congress passed a bill appropriating five hundred million dollars for China. It wasn't a loan; it was an outright grant. It was passed without debate and without a dis- senting vote. Why? Because there was a good government in China? An efficient gov- ernment? A non-corrupt government? No, indeed. It was the very same government that is there now — the one we are being told is too bad for us to support or associate with. It was passed because we desperately needed China on our side. Well, is an independent and friendly China less vital to our security now than then? I think not. If it hadn't been so humiliating, it would have been comical to witness General Sessions 35 the great United States that had been supplying the Japanese against China, now practically down on its knees, pleading: "Please, China, please hang on. Hold the Japanese three long years until we can rebuild our sunken navy, capture the islands one by one, develop the B-29 and the atomic bomb and then bring our superior power to bear on Japan." China bled herself white buying that time for us — and now gets pushed aside, allegedly because her government isn't as democratic or efficient as we would like. China's weaknesses today are in large part the result of her loyalty, not of her disloyalty. Some of them are badges of honor, not of disgrace. The Chinese leaders whom we now label fascists or reactionaries are mostly those who warned Chiang Kai-shek we would throw China down. Now we insist that he kick them out. How can he kick them out when they were right? They urged after Pearl Harbor that he concentrate on eliminating the Communists, and let us fight the Japanese. After all, we were the ones who had made the money selling Japan the scrap iron and the oil — why not let us do the fighting? But Chiang and most of his people believed our government's promises, they assumed we would stand by them after the war as they had stood by us during the war. China is disintegrating today largely because of that misplaced faith. Rut my primary concern is not for the Chinese. They know how to "eat bitterness." Somehow they will pull through. Besides they have clear con- sciences; they haven't betrayed any one; they can sleep at night. My greatest concern is for my own country. How much more will it cost us — in money and resources and men — to keep Western Europe free or even ourselves, if China and Asia go down? In the long run we need them worse than they need us. Almost everyone in Asia sees that clearly. They wonder why we fail to, why a nation with all the aces insists on playing them so badly or even throwing them away. I doubt that ERP can succeed in Europe if Russia gets control of China — which means of Asia — as she will if we don't help effectively and at once. An intelligent and immediate program of aid to China consisting of moral support, surplus munitions, American personnel for military train- ing, and advice at all levels, dollars to balance China's international pay- ments, help stabilize her currency, and loans for specified development projects could not cost more than a billion and a half dollars. If that billion and a half for China should make the difference between success and failure of the proposed seventeen billion for Europe, it would seem to be a good investment. It is to save money, not to waste it, that I believe we must make a real effort to keep China independent and on our side. The third criterion necessary to give ERP a fifty-fifty chance of success, in addition to vigorous collective effort by the European countries and prompt action to save the Far East, is that we get an organization to administer the program that can and will do it on a hard-headed, businesslike, efficient basis. Its personnel must have warm hearts but completely cold heads. 36 American Association of School Administrators Money, materials, and goodwill alone won't do the job. We have to have top-notch men who will actually get the coal mines producing coal, get the railroads running, get the steel plants and the fertilizer factories pro- ducing, and the fertilizer out on the fields, and so on. There are plenty of Americans who have that administrative know-how. But there are not many in old line government agencies. And no one need expect that they will come in and work under such agencies. The old line agencies are not set up and staffed to administer. They are set up to make studies and prepare reports, to consider and evaluate, to formulate policies and general plans. Then again, they operate on the seniority basis, or, as we call it, the senility basis. Every normal man wants to get ahead in life, and if you are in an outfit organized on the seniority basis, the one thing that is necessary for you to get to the top is just this: to live long enough. Well, that is not quite true. You also must make no enemies. And what is necessary to make no enemies? You must never have a new idea. You can't get ahead if you have ideas, if you exercise initiative and imagination. In any bureaucratic organization operating on the basis of seniority, there is a premium on conforming, and a penalty on imagination, initiative, drive. This job can't be done by any such government agency. It will require the very best executives America has to make it succeed. I never can vote for this proposal if it is placed in or under one of the regular old line departments or agencies because they are not set or trained or equipped to do it. They have to deal with other governments in tradi- tional methods. Their main concern must be to avoid incidents or 'hurting feelings. The administrator of this program has to deal with other governments and foreign business or industrial organization on a basis of hard-headed efficiency and results in tons of food and steel. If it is not done that way, the resources and strength of the United States will be squandered and the desired results still not obtained, the people over there still not saved. I think we will get such an administrative setup in the law — if the adminis- tration will cooperate and appoint top-notch men. My fourth criterion is this: we must be willing to put in enough to win. Would you like your doctor to say: "Now, you have pneumonia and you are mighty sick. I will give you a million units of penicillin, but I am telling you in advance that if you don't get well on the one million, I won't give you any more." We don't say when we go to war, "We will spend one hundred billion dollars, and if we don't win with that, we will quit, we will surrender." When the President comes to us and says it has to be seventeen billion or nothing, I can't accept that without careful scrutiny — because the seven- teen billion figure is merely the sum of about sixteen other figures — one for each of sixteen countries plus Western Germany. Until each of those amounts is explained and justified to us, obviously the sum of them cannot be accepted. So I do not know just what the proper estimate is. But I am convinced ( rENBR \l. SBSSIONS 37 that if we are prepared to put in whatever it takes, it will cost us less — rather than more — assuming the other criteria are also fulfilled. I hat is, if we are willing to put in twenty or twenty-five billion if necessary to win, I don't think it will actually take twelve billion. There are far larger reserves in those countries than are now visible. Farmers in France and Italy are not going to bring out their grain, their hogs, or chickens to sell for paper money when there isn't anything to be bought with it that they want and its value is steadily depreciating. But once there is hope of revival, of stability, of factories being put into operation turning out goods they want and need, you will find enormously greater resource- than expected in commodities, in industry and initiative, and in productive capacity, both agricultural and industrial. Russia hangs over their heads day and night. They aren't sure who is friend and who is enemy even in their own countries. You can't expect them to be too bold in standing up against the Communists unless they are reasonably sure they will be supported effectively. If we are willing to stay in and pitch until we win, I am confident they are stronger than either we or they realize. Together we can win if we go all-out. If we aren't pre- pared to do that, I doubt that it is wise to start. A very wise man once said: "If you are going out to war and you find the enemy has twenty thousand men and you have only ten thousand men, you'd better not get into the battle. Better try to resolve your differences some other way. "If you are planning to build a house, first decide whether you have enough to complete it. If not, better not start at all." His name was Jesus. Maybe you have heard of Him. He is usually thought of as a sentimentalist. Actually He was an utterly hard-headed realist. We must have men in government with that sort of practical good sense. The other day I participated in a forum on this issue, and one of my colleagues said, "We should attempt this Recovery Program even if we fail. It is better to try it and fail than not to try at all." I cannot agree for a moment. We had better not try it at all than try it and fail. That is inexcusable. It does no one any good, and can bring disaster. If we are not prepared to make a go of it, then let's not start. And now the fifth criterion. At best, the program buys time — holds back the dictatorship world to give the tree world rime in which to try to get organized on a better, sounder basis. Will we use that time to get the UYiited Nat ions reformed, with its charter revised or amended so that it can take on the job of resisting aggrc- sion anywhere? A function which we are compelled to assume in this emergency. We had to do it when Greece and Turkey were threatened. We have to do it now when Italy, France, and others are threatened. We are at present the only nation with the resources and strength to do it. So we have to do the best we can. Hut we haven't the resources or wealth or strength to carry on this policeman's job indefinitely — and we haven't the wisdom. 38 American Association of School Administrators Furthermore, if we try to do it indefinitely, the rest of the world will come to hate us in the process. If we can win a little time, a breathing spell, and if we use that time to exercise positive, vigorous, imaginative leadership to get the nations to- gether on a workable basis, since the present United Nations structure has proved not workable, then I think the program makes sense. We must get the world organization so it can handle emergencies like these — in the name and in the strength of humanity, not of just one or a few nations. We must get it with Russia if possible — without her if necessary. Stalin and his Politbureau apparently think that we think we cannot get along without Russia, and we act as if they were right. I am convinced that if and when we demonstrate to the Russians that we and the other free peoples of the world can work without them, we will soon find we will be able to work with them. Probably 80 percent of the people of the world are still willing and able to come along on such a program of organizing to resist further expansion of the area of slavery and dictatorship and to assist expansion of the area of freedom and federation. But they can't do it without our full participation — yes, our active initiative and leadership. We went into the United Nations with the idea that the veto would be used only to block any possibility of the organization getting out of hand and making war unjustifiably on any member. We were so decent ourselves, and so naive, that we couldn't imagine any nation's leaders coldly planning to use the veto, not to block war, but to block peace. Actually the devil himself could not have thought up a more diabolically ingenious device by which any one of the Big Five with perfect legality and without reproach could use the veto to prevent the making of peace. Russia hasn't used the veto once to block war. She has used it over a score of times to block measures or decisions that were steps in the direction of peace. We have got to get an organization with laws and a policeman which the peaceful nations can use to prevent aggression and make peace, and not one which a non-peaceful nation (if one of the Big Five) can use to protect aggression and block peace. The United States cannot carry this load indefinitely, or very long. Even this emergency program will be a terrific strain. If out of it comes 80 percent of the world organized on a workable basis of voluntary fed- eration, then it will be a good investment, one of the best bargains in history. Without such a result we will have postponed perhaps, but not prevented, the crack-up. I do not think war with Russia is inevitable as so many assume. I do not think it is at all probable — if the United States and the nations still free prove worthy in this great crisis and challenge. • The Marshall Plan alone is not enough. It is just one important com- ponent of the sound over-all foreign policy and program that we must develop and carry through with skill and efficiency if we are to win this political war so as to avoid an atomic war with unforeseeable destruction, even extermination. No component is more important than getting the General Sessions 39 world organization reformed either under Article 109 or Article 51, so that it can function as it is clear the present structure cannot function. Will we have the wisdom and the greatness to rise to this occasion? We started out with the so-called Big Five. China was included out of recognition of the great strength and moral insight, the great fortitude and endurance she had contrihuted in holding the line almost alone for thirteen years — and because of her enormous potentialities. Actually she was too exhausted to carry much of the load, so it really was the Big Four. Then we discovered France was far more broken and divided than generally realized. She had to have help rather than give help. So it was really only the Big Three. Then we discovered England was also desperately weakened. She has only a couple of deuces left, although she still plays them masterfully as if she had all aces. So in reality there are only the Big Two — the two worlds with which I began. It has got to become the Big One. Is it to be by conquest? Or by agree- ment ? I am convinced it can be by agreement. Whenever enough of the peaceful governments and peoples of the world get together on a basis that makes clear to the Kremlin, first, that Russia doesn't need to go to war to get security or satisfaction of any legitimate grievances she may have, and, second, that she can't succeed even if she does go to war — at that point agreement becomes more advantageous for Russia, for her own sake, than attempted conquest — and I believe she will come along. She will still be what she is, yes, but will agree along with the rest of the world to stop when the lights are red and go when the lights are green. She will come along — not because of anyone's persuasion or bribing or secret deals — as were tried before — but because there is more for her to gain by agreeing than by disagreeing. As we stand at this great crossroad in our foreign relations, most people are asking, "What is the Kremlin going to do?" That really isn't the place to look. For the decisions in the Kremlin still depend on the decisions in Washington. Thank God, the United States is one of the few remaining places on the earth where common people just like ourselves still can determine what the decisions are to be in Washington. W ho can do more to shape the views and attitudes of our people toward the expanding role our nation must assume than those who day in and day out have charge of the training of the minds and hearts of the nation's children? How great indeed is your opportunity — how terrible your responsibility. THIRD GENERAL SESSION Monday Morning, February 2x 1948 THE CONVENTION EXHIBIT R. E. STEWART, NEW YORK, NEW YORK; PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATED EXHIBITORS OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION President Hunt: We are glad to greet you all as we resume the delib- erations of the Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention of the American Association of School Administrators. There is an old nursery rhyme about a diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar, but I would suggest that primarily in the interest of those who are not here, our morning sessions begin at nine-thirty and not at ten o'clock. It may be that the influence of the Washington Birthday holiday has led some of the missing brethren to sleep late this morning. Won't you pass on that message to them and remind them that we will get under way to- morrow morning promptly at nine-thirty? The mechanics of a meeting of this kind are always interesting and are carried out in great detail by our very efficient secretary, who had most of us lined up back here at nine o'clock, ready to walk out and greet you at nine-thirty. We know that during the course of the morning, this hall will be comfortably filled and we shall, of course, move on with our program. The program indicates that on Saturday afternoon last, at two o'clock, the convention officially opened down in the Exhibit Hall, with a word of greeting on the part of the local superintendent of schools, Mr. Floyd Potter, who has given yeoman service to the details of this convention, and the presentation, officially, to the exhibitors of their national president. That in itself is of sufficient importance, because of the contribution that the exhibits make, to direct again to your attention, through an official general session program, this significant feature of the convention. It is not a side show to the main attraction. It is a part of the main attraction itself, because the cause of education has been enhanced tre- mendously by the assistance and by the service of that splendid organization, the Associated Exhibitors of the National Education Association. We welcome to our convention platform this morning the president of that association, who will tell us something of the responsibility attendant on planning this phase of our great national convention. Talking yesterday with Mr. Harold Allan of the National Education Association, who assists in the details pertaining to the exhibits, Mr. Allan indicated that in the forty hours that the convention exhibit space is open, one could have but one and a third minutes to give to each of the exhibits there on display. I know Mr. Stewart will tell us even more interesting facts concerning the exhibit and those who make it possible. In your behalf and in behalf of our Association, I express to Mr. Stewart, and through him to the association that he represents, the very deep and grateful appreciation that is ours for this magnificent contribution to our 140] General Sessions 41 annual conventions. I present to you at this time the president of the Associated Exhibitors of the National Education Association, Mr. R. E. Stewart of New York City. Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart: Dr. Hunt, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentle- men: Again, it is my pleasure to appear before you in behalf of the firms who are exhibiting their products at this, your Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention. At one time or another it has been said, generally by unthinking persons, that school administrators dwell in ivory towers. Let us examine to what degree that is a thoughtless statement. You have product, plant, personnel, payroll, maintenance and management problems, just as the industrial executive has. When his plant or equipment becomes obsolete or can be done better by a later development, he goes out and buys a new one, or at least that is the popular conception of what he does. On the one hand, he has a board of directors, beyond them a group of stockholders to satisfy, and, on the other hand, he must keep labor happy and, concomitantly, he must produce that which the market will absorb. You educational executives must calculate when your plant capacity is reached. You must know when to expand and where to locate the ex- pansion. You must know when and with what to replace and renew both plant and equipment. You must decide what new buildings shall be built and with what they shall be equipped. You must know how much to spend for them in today's market, always with an eye toward your budget and the taxpayers or trustees it reflects. In solving these problems, you dare not neglect your staff of workmen, your teachers. Unlike workmen in a factory, your staff work less with their hands than with their minds. It is generally easier to discover where and why a piece is being made a thousandth of an inch out of dimension in a factory than I would think it is to discover where students are being stimulated to wrong ideas. In this period of high prices, your payroll problem parallels that of the business executive. The welfare of your personnel is quite as important as it is in the business establishment. Your normal personnel replacement program is probably more acute than it is in business. You must have not only great executive capacity but also much diplomacy and tact. On the one hand, you may be beset by taxpayers who complain of high budgets or by fond parents who complain when Johnny doesn't get a gold star on his report, and, on the other hand, occasionally by a resisting, although never capricious, I am sure, board of education or hoard of trustees. Not only are you obliged sometimes to deal with an obstreperous pupil but also with an occasional recalcitrant teacher. You are expected to have the ability to produce good citizens out of various prades of raw- material. Sometimes you have a good plant, a good workman with which to do it. Sometimes you are less fortunate. Yours must be the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job. A year ago, we extended to you this same invitation to examine the prod- ucts and services that are being exhibited. Today, we feel warranted almost 4. i ~^j lit?: I -.''• sSSBBSI % V PI f-*fj< *w >* ' * i * Li Once again the world's largest educational exhibit attracted thousands throughout convention week. in urging you to do it because, in the year that has passed, every major manufacturer has had time to complete his reconversion and reorganization plans to the point where his product today reflects the advancement made by science and industry during the war years. That which you will see, therefore, represents the very latest devices and services of its kind. Today, most advertisements are so enticing that we unconsciously pre- determine the quality of the product. In an effort to show the merits of their products, these manufacturers have gone a step further. They have brought their advertisements to life so that you can actually see and touch and work the various products you will eventually use. The advertisements which you casually thumb through in magazines have become more than just pictures. They have become animated. It is as though the advertising pages of the Saturday Evening Post or some other such paper suddenly came to life. It is not like buying out of a catalog. The men you will meet there and the workers they represent have more than just a monetary interest in these products. Beyond it, they have a deep desire to contribute toward the production of the best devices and services and publications that can be produced, to the end that American youth have the best possible education. Moreover, they want to work with you administrators as well as for you. What they are showing represents the best efforts that their respective com- panies have been able to assemble. What you see displayed represents the specifications you wrote at one time or another. If the requirements have since changed, you will find them ready to endeavor to supply what you now need. You know education's needs. Let them know the sort of product you require to help you do an even better job toward producing the end product — mentally and physically strong, intelligent American youth, gradu- ates whom industry and the professions are eager to absorb. Your business manager, Mr. Harold Allan, tells me this is the largest display of products ever assembled at any of your conventions. Nearly three hundred firms occupy more than ninety thousand square feet. The capital tied up in the firms that are exhibiting here is an amazing figure. It is in the neighborhood of two and one-half billion — that's billion, a-b — dollars. [42] •V-' '■' ^ '■ Their sales are about $15 billion a year. Aside from being a lot of money, it is an index to the importance in which these firms hold your profession. In the moment left to me, may I extend another invitation, this time on behalf of the Associated Exhibitors of the National Education Asso- ciation, to attend the program in the Auditorium next Wednesday evening at eight-thirty. There, the American Education Award for 1948 is to be presented to an outstanding man of business, Mr. Paul G. Hoffman, who, you may be sure, will have an appropriate message. Following that, Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians will take over. Every one of you will be welcome. There will be seats for all. General admission will be as usual, through your AASA or NEA badges, and the reserved section by tickets distributed by members of the Associated Exhibitors. The physical structure and the acoustics of the Auditorium are such that any seat in the house is a good seat. Fred Waring has pledged every member of his entire group to an outstanding performance. We feel confident you will consider it an evening well spent. Thank you! President Hunt: Thank you, Mr. Stewart. The convention will be interested, I know, in the announcement that the exhibits are under close scrutiny and appraisal officially by a large committee representing the Asso- ciation, that has been working with the Association and working with the Associated Exhibitors. It will be possible to bring to this convention sub- sequently displays and exhibits of profit and of value to all of us. We are appreciative of the contribution that the exhibitors are making and we are grateful for Mr. Stewart's being with us this morning. THE SCHOOL BOARDS OPPORTUNITIES Appraisal of the Schools by a School Board President DAVID J. ROSE, M.D.. GOLDSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA; PRBSIDBNT, NATIONAL COI N( II OF STATE SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATIONS President Hunt: You will note by your convention program that we are privileged to welcome to our convention platform this morning two groups who contribute materially to the welfare and the advancement of [43] 44 American Association of School Administrators education in these great United States. I wish the time might permit the personal introduction of those with us here this morning, representing these two great organizations — the National Congress of Parents and Teachers and the National Council of State School Boards Associations. The details or the mechanics of the convention program, however, do not permit such a privilege on the part of your presiding officer. He wishes, therefore, to present those who do represent, by virtue of their leadership and capacity, these two great organizations and through them greet all on the platform representing these two associations. We recall, all of us, I am certain, here in Atlantic City, the splendid address that was brought to our general convention last year by the president of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, who has continued her splendid service in office. In greeting her, we greet all of the national officers and the state officers who are with us this morning. We express to them our appreciation of their interest in our convention. May I present to the con- vention at this time, for your recognition and endorsement, the splendid leader of this great National Congress of Parents and Teachers, Mrs. L. W. Hughes. [Applause] In just a moment, we are to present the able leader of the National Council of State School Boards Associations. I want at this time, however, to recognize the executive secretary of that association, that through him we may greet his fellow officers and the representatives of various state and local school board associations who likewise are with us today. May I present then for your greeting and your recognition, Mr. Robert Cole, the executive secretary. [Applause] You will understand, I know, the feeling of happiness and of personal as well as professional pride that is mine in the opportunity that I have to present to this convention this morning two of the members of the Chicago Board of Education. You must sense the satisfaction that is mine in their presence here at this convention and, through them, feel the spirit of the board that is guiding the destinies of that great school system with which I am so proud to be affiliated. I want to present to this audience two of my associates at this time, two of my eleven employers who represent the great city of four million in Chicago, Mrs. Clifton Utley and Mrs. Harry M. Mulberry. [Applause] Robert Burns, poet and philosopher, it was who said, "O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!" We, of course, covet such a power. Not having it, we have to look to others to do that for us. And we have done that very thing this morning in setting up this program. Your Executive Committee thought it would be helpful indeed, if, from three groups with whom we are closely affiliated and whose support is so necessary for the success of this great cause of education, we might hear an analysis of our jobs as they see us in our jobs. We turn, of course, very naturally, to one organization that has already been mentioned this morning, the National Council of State School Boards Associations, which joins us in annual convention here in Atlantic City. And how fortunate the association has been to have had this vear the ( il \ I R \l SESSIONS 4S active leadership of an active school board member, who speaks to us at this time on the general subject of the "Appraisal of the Schools by a School Board President," on ''The School Board's Opportunities." 1 am very happy to present to this convention the great leader of a great organization, Dr. David J. Rose of Goldsboro, North Carolina, President of the National Council of State School Hoards Associations. Dr. Rose. Mr. Rosk: Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: The National Council of State School Hoards Associations brings greet- ings to the American Association of School Administrators. We are happy and grateful to you for the place and space on your national convention program. Infants rarely receive such a signal honor. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the father of our group was a woman. We are, however, as community school boards, elderly. Boards of education existed necessarily before we had superintendents; in fact, this country had school boards before there was a United States of America; but on a national, organized level, we are still in the cradle. It would be easy for me to enumerate the same old list of problems con- fronting us. Anyone here could talk an hour on a dozen or more subjects relating to the public schools. The press, wires, and air are loaded with in- formation concerning our system of public instruction. Dr. Calvin Grieder, of the University of Colorado, says: "One of the most important respon- sibilities of a school board is the selection of a competent superintendent." Benjamin Fine says that the number one problem in education today is teacher supply. Dr. Willis A. Sutton, of Atlanta, Georgia, feels that providing proper financial support for public schools is in the upper brackets of "musts." W. K. Burke, Superintendent, New Bedford, Massachusetts, said here a year ago: "The biggest problem facing education today is the teacher-shortage crisis." These sound opinions are from educational leaders and authorities whom we all respect. Housing thirty million children with only a million teachers should be considered one of the top problems. The teachers are overloaded. The real teachers are greatly underpaid. We have, no doubt, failed to sense the seriousness of personnel relationships in our educational system. With these admissions, I wish to think of some of our opportunities. Benjamin Disraeli once said: "Man is not the creature of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of men." Men and circumstances of the future are our concern. Dr. W. E. Givens, Executive Secretary of the National Education Association, said: "The improvement of the schools is the task of all of us working together." It will be along Dr. Givens' thought that I speak today. My thoughts and expressed ideas will be in the interest of children. If the usual pattern is followed, too few references will be made on the youth level. We do not intentionally get and stay aloft. Most of us here have gone beyond childhood and not yet reached the second stage. We will remain above the clouds unless and until we form a perfectly balanced tripod, with one angle supported by school administrators and aides, one angle by principals and teachers, and the third angle by parents and lay groups 46 American Association of School Administrators (school boards, parent-teacher associations, et cetera), so that regardless of the direction in which the equilateral triangle moves, it is still in har- monious balance with the children occupying the heart of the geometric figure. To get honest weight, there must be balance, whether it be in the store, shop, on the farm, or in school. Without this equilibrium, the objective in schools to improve all phases of education is lost. In many areas the crevices are so wide between school boards, administrators, teachers, parents, and children, that we are forced to vision a lack of stern, good sense. These gaps of mist and fog have narrowed little since the first community public school district in Massachusetts was organized. Each group wants the credit for achievement. Each group wants to shift all blame. Aren't we all allies, lay and professional, striving toward a common goal? This missing ingredient termites the mudsill of educational essence. We Americans will never move above the salvage level until we solidly embrace opportunities in the interest of the youth of our nation. Everyone here assembled is cognizant of the one-angle dogmatism exist- ing in too many school districts of this nation. They are the school districts which have retreated and will die. There is a lack of harmony which breeds confusion and nurses discord. "Even the home must cooperate with the school, otherwise all the school can teach will be forgotten in the home." It must be admitted that administrators in all vocations, avocations, and professions, at times need some supported assistance. Sometimes they have a disease peculiar to their position and station. They sometimes domineer and regiment, thus destroying the personal identity and individual initiative. This especially applies to the administrator-teacher relationship. My indict- ment applies to the minority. However, across this broad country, there are school heads who would like to fix the policies, set the salaries, and administer the brands of social, economic, and educational opportunities. The children do not know their needs and many of the parents don't know. The local school boards don't know the answers. May I inject again the idea of a closer working relationship of the equilateral triangle? School boards, yes, there are school boards all over this nation, some good, some not so good. I truly believe that the first real, genuine oppor- tunity for a greater service to the children is to improve our local school boards. This applies to school trustees associations of metropolitan centers as well as to the so-called educational slums of mountains and marshes. I have recently had an opportunity to see a small school located on a wooded hill in a Far Western state. At this school, they were having an old-time "work spell." All interested lay and professional personnel had discussed the situation. Men were clearing the area of obstacles on the ground and low-hanging limbs overhead. Other men were carefully pre- paring a suitable playground. Sufficient and properly placed sanitary privies were replacing the "Chic Sale" type. The schoolhouse was being repainted. Many women were working with a few men, landscaping the school grounds with native shrubs. A shed was being built for the old-time water pump 1 Elbert Hubbard, in Little Journeys. General Sessions 47 so that the children would not be in the open during inclement weather while getting a drink of water. A large pile of firewood was being placed under a roof. Inside the little schoolhouse, a kindly teacher had the attention of the children. The indomitable spirit of that teacher, filled with en- thusiasm, imparted cultural refinement and taste to the extent that all the pupils wanted more than anything in the world to be just like "Miss Sally." This is cooperative education. True democracy is a growing, living example of pride and peace in this small community. This sound and sane spirit of cooperative accord will develop a consolidated national oppor- tunity for the children. Here, the school board had the prerequisites of membership: "Sagacity, Leadership, and Vision." What road education? Yes, we have school boards, three hundred and fifty to four hundred thousand — most of which are good. There has been a great deal of criticism of the value of these boards. Some of it is justified. There seems to be a universal trend to criticize. (I have not been immunized.) The chief criticism is directed at the intellectual level of the board members. It should be directed at the inertia of these men and women. "Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." Phi Beta Kappa keys represent real achieve- ment, but by no measuring rule yet made do they serve as a true barometer to the worth of a school board member. I have said before, and I repeat, that the important thing is not so much what's in the head as what's in the heart. At the California Trustees Association annual meeting in 1947, a farmer member of a rural school board came to me and said: "I'd like you to visit our school. We got a big consolidated school with forty teachers and nine hundred kids, where the children can learn anything and everything. We got the best school in California. "We really work with our principal and teachers for our youngsters. I didn't go to school beyond the eighth grade, but by-^rolly, we sure are going to see to it that our children have good schools." I believe this man was a good school board member. He would have been a better member, with an education, of course. Too frequently men and women are appointed or elected to school boards as political pay-offs. Glaring and deteriorating examples of the stigma of politics, both appointive and elective, have been uncovered from coast to coast. The dead sap on any school board should be replaced with active, interested men and women, of divers local interests, vocations, and professions, who have been successful in their own business. About 50 per- cent of the school boards of America are elected, about 50 percent, appointed. I believe it is time, yes, well past time, when a committee of both lay and professional national school groups should be appointed to make a care- ful study and recommendation in an effort to determine the best method of arriving at school board memberships. School boards are prone to devaluate the well trained school executive. No well qualified school administrator is looking for or expecting a rubber stamp approval <>f all his ideas. Fred Archer, of the University of Alabama. while superintendent of schools of Louisville, Kentucky, said: "There is no one single thing which gives a competent professional superintendent more 48 American' Association of School Administrators encouragement or more productive energy than a feeling that the board members to whom he is responsible will protect him against unfair and unwarranted attacks and pressure, and, when school difficulties arise, he wants a board that will not rush to the cyclone cellar and leave him tethered on the outside." If we are to attain the objective of education so that a person may benefit himself by serving society, may I again invite "team- work" ? We are not unmindful of our plight. Pressure groups on a national level are striving toward the unknown. Their mission is to disrupt the organism. Some of their propaganda is tinged with questionable potency. We are eval- uating. Race issues have even reached the fervent heat of the swinish secession idea. Eighteen segments of any anatomy are richly entitled to their own identity and value. Discrimination is universal. It is as prevalent in New York as in the Southeast, varying in degree only, and, for the most part, segregation actually prevails throughout America. Bennett Public High School in the better part of Buffalo, New York, has no Negro children attending. Glance at the picture from Long Beach, California, on the cover of the December 1947 American School Board Journal. They do not have segregation. There are no Negroes present. Look at the cover of any of the school journals and draw your conclusions from the photographs which speak for themselves. Segregation is not discrimination per se. There must be a motive. I segregate my pure-blooded Brahman cattle from the registered Jersey stock. Both are administered to on the same level. Never in the history of human kind has any race progressed as rapidly as the Negro. This progress was made principally in the South, and especially one section of Alabama. In the areas where there is publicized segregated discrimination, much progress has been made to balance opportunities, economic and edu- cational. There is great room for improvement, but it behooves sane, sound, educational leaders and economists rather than trading politicians to correct this defect. If we plucked the evil out of our own eye and built even decent privies for some of the New York City schools, we would have less isms taking root in this great country. My conclusions are drawn from personal observa- tions. Did we get a true picture of rural China as our emissary sat in a plush chair in Shanghai? The immortal Booker T. Washington has been selected by many writers as one of the eleven greatest teachers of all times. He ably expressed the sentiment of all sections of our country when he said: "There is something in human nature which always makes people reward merit, no matter under what color of skin merit is found." There are some who might say that Booker T. Washington would not evolve such a philosophy if he were living today. In my humble opinion, the philosophy of Moses, Plato, Saint Benedict, and both the Washingtons will live forever. Narrow, indis- criminate politics and economy-fear are constantly trying to split the race timber with wooden wedges. A fine metal of human-relations statesmanship will be required. If it is difficult, it will take a little while. If it is impossible, it will take a little longer. The whole body need not decompose because of General Session's 49 a icw carious teeth. If left unabused, merit will seek and find its reward. Is it conventional that some of the national committees have tinged their recommendations with sectional politics? We school people respect sectional differences diffusely. We shall not be deterred. We are a united nation. We will remain united regardless of idiosyncrasies or allergies. Is it possible that we arc allowing a minority group problem to disrupt a unity of giant strength? Is it possible that borers are gnawing at the taproot of the plant? How much punishment can unity endure? May we redraw the equilateral triangle with an indelible pencil? Evil and good have a common beginning. Each starts with a focal point. The focal point of disease is a germ. Likewise, of good, the starter is health. Without sound material, we cannot create sound structures. Human beings are structures of genetics, environment, and education. The material is health. The physical motivation of man is so irrevocably locked with the spiritual being that a physical defect too often causes a human evil. Just as the old saying, a blind person is compensated by an extra sensitive gift of •hearing, also the child with a physical defect and an above-average mentality may turn the gift of leadership into personal gain and revenge on the world. If we feel well, we think well. A warped body becomes a warped mind. The focal point of evil hides behind seemingly little things. It could be a tendency of bad hearing or eyesight. An infected tonsil can cause sluggish- ness. Children do not and cannot realize focal impairments. It manifests itself in such a mild and insidious form that even their parents and teachers are frequently unaware. Why are adults today, in increasing number, con- sulting psychologists? It is because of an inner mechanism called ballast. Ballast keeps the ship afloat. A shift of ballast means a leaking ship. Adult human beings recognize their shifty condition and seek a psychologist. They consult a mental doctor. There is hope for the future when a correct diagnosis is made. I contend that the health of the child diagnosed and treated would prevent the shift of ballast in the adult to an appreciable degree. Eifty percent of our children have retarding physical defects and only 10 percent are receiving any diagnostic and corrective measures. This becomes a responsibility of school authorities to face the problem squarely. Only a few years ago the small isolated minority groups who demanded preschool physical examinations and immunizations, tubercular skin tests and chest X-rays, were considered unduly alarmed pressure groups with a whispering campaign to the detriment of the school and community. Theo- retically and practically, as much consideration is given to the health of the school children in Brazil or Mexico today as is given to the children of Illinois, one of the wealthiest states in the union, the home of your president and the home of the American Medical Association. In Chicago there is a complete compilation of the past and present of practically all the children. Everything is known about the child except the health record. A similar status exists in New York City. A worse condition exists in rural America. California could be used as an exemplar. Texas is progressing rapidly on a health level. School publications dealing with public school 50 American Association of School Administrators education in America are glaring by their passive quiescence in school child health. Even Mr. Benjamin Fine, whom I respect so highly, of the New York Times, seems to "light a Murad" in the complete lack of his analytical survey of our antique school systems' health program. The doctors, with few exceptions, have responded to requests for aid in examining and treating school children on all levels. Physical and mental hygiene and health are no longer fads and frills. The total health of a child is the total life situa- tion of the adult. The time has arrived when a positive, aggressive, com- prehensive health program must become the responsibility of the school authorities, subservient to knowledge and experience. This program will require the entire equilateral triangle. All phases of public school education are in a dilemma today. We have theorized and experimented since we discovered our unwholesome plight about twenty-eight years ago. There is nothing more scientific than training youth. However, we have failed to cope with the advance in other fields of science. Atomic energy will soon be on a commercial basis. The 100 per- cent fatality of cerebrospinal meningitis of ten years ago has been reduced to zero. Radar has conquered the treacherous Mississippi River. The world can be circled while the California delegation travels from home here. There is little atomic speed, radar, or streptomycin in the U. S. public school systems. The private and church schools sensed the inadequacy and frankly, where available, are educating the "cream of the crop." If this trend continues, the very heart of our democratic public school system will die. Our way of government, our way of life, is at stake. Is it not possible for us to formulate a coordinated plan, national and even international in character, to be administered on a local level? Industry and finance have five- and ten- and even twenty-year plans. Year-to-year farming destroys the soil and pauperizes the tiller. Business without a future plan dies before birth. Progress in schooling thirty million children, with five million extras just entering, will be directly in proportion to the sound- ness of the long-term program. A twenty-year plan will cost a great deal of money. The units of our government, the people, will provide the finances when shown the sound, common sense of a school plan with objectives similar to those of Oakwood Private School in New York, which are: "to encourage and evolve those traits of character that are basic and essential to a Christian personality ; to lay a sound basis for further educa- tional advancement; to provide an environment in which children may learn to live together ; and to develop appreciation for our social heritage." All gathered here could and would add some thoughts to these objectives — vocational education and civics. Manual dexterity means the survival of mankind. There are a few people who still place all the emphasis on the little red schoolhouse and the horse and buggy days of the three R's. Such people are narrow, have a chip on their shoulder, or have failed to grow up to the present standard of living. It is appalling to determine the degree of knowledge that high-school graduates have about their government. Ignorance of the citizenry will not sustain a democracy. Education for a long time was confined to the chosen few. It must be international in the General Sessions 51 future. The preamble to the constitution of Unesco says: "Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed." Mentally retarded minors have a place in the plan. Inservice training at school expense is as important to public school advance- ment as it is in industry. This plan will require sound representative brains of all friends of public school education. The teaching profession must shed its professional sympathy, dedicate itself to the importance and oppor- tunities of its position, and share correctly in the economy of our nation. The plan would survey the geography and population trends, determ un- necessary tax support, demand full school value per tax dollar, and properh construct to growing demands. Let us look to the future on such solid footing that when recessions come, the legislative branches of our govern- ment will no longer construe schools to be nonessentials. Depressions come but the depression crop of children are as viable and even more important than any other crop of children. Our responsibilities are great. Our opportunities are far greater. The success of the United Nations is prayed for. The proper education of all our youth is more important. The defeats of our youth are our disgrace. Their accomplishments are our glory. With integrity, precision, and vision may we stamp with indelible ink the equilateral school triangle to our age in the interest of our youth. A JOB WITH YOUTH Appraisal of the Schools by a Parent JAMES LEE ELLENWOOD, SECRETARY, YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, STATE OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK, NEW YORK President Hunt: For the viewpoint of the parent in our three-way appraisal of our great educational program, we turn to a parent, although I presume he will be very quick to point out, as I have heard him do on several occasions, that he is a grandparent as well. "A Job with Youth" is the subject announced for our next speaker, Dr. James Lee Ellenwood, the secretary of the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation of the state of New York. If you have not already met our next speaker, you are going to find him a delightful personality. Author of two best-sellers, There's Xo Place Like Home, and // Runs in the Family, Dr. Ellenwood has served' as a pastor, Navy chaplain in World War I, and a YMCA executive. For sixteen years, he was state executive secretary for the Young Men's Christian Association of New York, a position he relinquished only recently to devote his full time to writing and speaking. I know that we are going to enjoy his presentation as we listen to this appraisal from the viewpoint of a parent. I present Dr. Ellenwood. Mr. Ellenwood: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: A few years ago, I had a boy who was undergoing a terrific, almost fatal, struggle to determine how many senior years he was going to have in high school. [Laughter] I was invited to speak to his high-school assembly and he was selected to introduce me. The night before I was to speak, he came to my 52 American Association of School Administrators room with an introduction all written out. It was a wonderful introduction. It told what a fine man I am, what a father, what a pal, how neat and orderly and agreeable I was around the house. I was a little embarrassed and I would have stopped him but his mother was there and 1 thought it would do her good to hear that. [Laughter] I looked forward, however, with some trepidation to the next morning. We went over to the school. In that school, when you spoke, you didn't mess around with any of the teachers. You just walked up on the platform with the young man or young woman who was going to introduce you. The boy took me up on the platform and we stood there together. He is much taller and better looking and thinner than I am — he keeps saying — and I got all ready for this wonderful introduction. Imagine my surprise when, instead of giving it, he looked the crowd over quite casually, he looked at me as if I were something that had sneaked in, and he said, "Fellows and girls, I brought along the old man." [Laughter] What 1 said to him has no part in this program. [Laughter] I never thought that I would reach the point where I would represent all the old men and some of the old women of this country [laughter], but here I am and I would like to speak frankly, in my allotted time, I hope. I hope, if you differ with what a doddering old granddad has to say, you won't get mad with Dr. Hunt for bringing me here, because I am leaving as soon as I am through speaking. The Lord will forgive you for being wrong. [Laughter] What I want to say, first, is that as a father, I am not primarily inter- ested in the school system or what happens to the school or what happens to the PTA or what kind of an organization the board of management is. I am not primarily interested in those things. When I send my kids to school, I am interested in one thing — what happens to them. Every standard that the school has, every practice, must be made in terms, as far as I am con- cerned, of what happens to my children. I am interested in what happens to my children not from a superficial point of view. I want to know what happens inside of them. I want to know about their emotions and their convictions and their methods of thinking. I would like them to be neat, but I think that is superficial. I would like them to be quiet, but I think that is superficial. I would like them to obey promptly, but I think that is superficial. If, therefore, somebody says to me, "There is a school and it is always neat and it is always quiet and it is always well disciplined, to me that does not mean that it is a good school. I am interested in what happens to my boy — the one boy that I have, and my three girls. That is my family, one boy and three girls, and my boy thinks that each one of the three girls is twice as screwy as the other two. That's my problem. [Laughter] What I would like is to have my people, my young people, live in a system, take part in a process, that is not satisfied with superficialities but is actually interested in what happens to them. Now, in order to be specific, I would like to tell you, and I am frank to say it, that I may be prejudiced. It is my own viewpoint. I would like, however, to tell you the qualities that I like my young people to have. I don't General Sfssions ^3 say that the school can produce them all. I don't say the home or the church can. I don't know yet, and I can't settle that here, hut what I am saying is that you have to start, whatever the institution is, with what you want from your young people. If we were •riven the mystic privilege of putting a hoy on this stage at this point and, by some miraculous power, could make him into the kind of hoy he should he, that is the realism with which I think our job ought to he approached. Right at the beginning, there will he certain differences of opinion as to what Mime of us want and some of us don't want. In my home, there are three different conceptions of what constitutes a good hoy — my own, which I rarely ever express when I am nearer home than I am this morning [laughter], my wife's, which is the prevalent one [laughter], and her mother's, which I don't care a hit in the world ahout. [ Laughter] Why, at the very heginning, we run into difficulties! I rememher one time when Grandma was giving a party to eleven other old Flathush — well, it was a hridge party. [Laughter] My hoy came home from school just as the hridge party had adjourned to eat. They were having doughnuts My boy smelled them as he came, miles away [laughter], so he paused as he came through the front door, and Grandma saw him and invited him into the room where they were having the doughnuts — not honest-to-God doughnuts, hut little dinky doughnuts [laughter] — and she asked him to have one. He took three. Then he went out to the kitchen to eat them. He got himself a glass of milk, and just as he got his glass of milk, he remem- hered that it was not polite to eat and run, so he went hack where the party was, with the milk and the doughnuts. Then he proceeded to eat the doughnuts, as I have trained him to eat them, which is never to touch one until it has heen properly haptized. [Laughter] We're rather proud of that, we Ellenwoods. We have dunked doughnuts for four generations and never lost a crumh ! [Laughter] Well, he proceeded to eat these doughnuts in the presence of Grandma and her party, and Grandma gave him the dickens. Then he came to me — and this illustrates the differences in standards. He came to me and he said, "Grandma got mad at me for dunking the doughnuts." He said, 'What can I do?" I said, "My hoy, always respect old age and never fight with your Grandma, hut don't let me catch you eating any dry doughnuts!" [Laughter] Main- of our young people are up against that dilemma as they come up against conflicting and contradictory conceptions of what constitutes a good hoy. T don't have a threat deal of time here this morning, hut I should like to give you three qualities that are much more important than whether or not we dunk doughnuts, that I think arc essential to a young man or woman for this day. The first one — and this is sort of a schoolhovish approach, hut in the time allotted to me, it is all I can do. The first thing I want in my ho\ , if he were sitting here, is that he he intelligent. T start there. I don't start with his heing good hecaiw there is no ahiding goodness without intelligence. 54 American Association of School Administrators and a boy can take no credit for being good if he's too dumb to think up something else. [Laughter] I list the basic quality of a good person as an intelligent person. But I would like to define intelligence — and it may not suit all of the school people here. I certainly don't make it synonymous with high marks. I graduated from Columbia University 'way back in 1913 without honors, and ever since then I don't make intelligence synonymous with high marks. [Laughter] Perhaps it is a defensive mechanism. But I would like to give you a definition of intelligence that I have heard. I don't think I made this up, although I may have. An intelligent person is a person who knows how to handle himself in whatever situation he finds himself. That is the best definition of intel- ligence I have ever heard. It involves information, it involves adjustment, it involves poise, it involves how to lend things, it involves how to forget things, it involves how to handle oneself in whatever situation one finds oneself. In my judgment, any institution that takes the hours that the school takes out of a boy's life and then controls a great deal of the boy's time after he is home, with his homework — somewhere, the program of a school system should be measured against that. I am not here to evaluate how much of it you do accept, and I say that in my appearances in schools, where I generally speak in the assembly, in the past two years I have been amazed at the remarkable progress that our schools have made in that sort of thing. Well, I want my boy to be intelligent. My home is only partly geared to make him intelligent. Sometimes, unless we are careful with respect to these superficialities, we are apt to stress methods that do not make him intelligent, and that has always struck me as curious. Any psychologist will tell you that a person begins to be a person when he asks his first "Why?" — that the basis for a continuing education is a lively curiosity. As long as a person doesn't ask "Why?" he is a mere automaton, but when he begins to ask "Why?" he begins to find the answers and his mind begins to expand. That is basic to a growing person. Homes are geared to what? They are against it. Do you know that? Schools are geared against it. We don't like to have our children ask "Why?" It drives us crazy. It drives me crazy. I violate right in my own home a prime methodology of intelligent people, and I have known schools that do it, too, where a boy shouldn't ask "Why?" I have a daughter who paints her fingernails an ungodly red. One morn- ing, I was having breakfast with her when she reached across the table for a piece of toast. It was like a flame darting across the table. [Laughter] I said to her, "I wish you wouldn't paint your fingernails that way." She said, "Why?" [Laughter] I said, "Because I don't like it." She said, "Why?" [Laughter] That was very embarrassing to me because I don't know why. [Laughter] That is one of the reasons why adults are embar- rassed in imposing so many things on youth — that they have no valid reason for them. We don't like to be asked "Why?" But I want my boy to be intelligent, and I have no hope of his being General Sessions 55 intelligent until he can ask "Why?" about everything. We don't want to build people who will follow the leader too much. Do you know something? I have just been on a trip across this country. Do you know what I think is one of the greatest fears in America? Not of war with Russia, not of war with anyone, not of the economic depression. Do you know what I think is one of the greatest fears? We seem to be afraid that all of a sudden some crackpot leader will emerge in this country and, by making certain promises and false pictures, lure people to vote for him, so that what happened to other nations can happen to us. That can't happen if people are intelligent. In our school system, I think you have a profound responsibility right at that point. The second quality that 1 want for my young people or for this boy sitting here is a hard quality' to name in one word, but it is a tremendous quality. It is a quality that is a combination of initiative and ingenuity and creativeness and independence and the desire for self-expression. My father had a name for it. He called it "git up and git." There never has been a good word devised for just what I mean. But I want young people who are self-starters, who can create things, who will be interested in creating things, who will not get a notion that they are dependent upon others but who can take a firm hold on life and mold it for their own useful ends and satisfaction. That quality doesn't grow except where people are encouraged to do things on their own, to break off with tradition, to ask questions. Anyone who is connected at all with the field of industry knows that it is not an uncommon thing for a young man to be very well trained and then to get into a field of industry and stop as a young engineer and never go on from there because this quality of experimental creativeness, or looking for something better, has not been developed along with his technical skill. Sometimes here our systems, because they have to be regimented to a certain point, instead of encouraging that quality, discourage it. I spoke at a place on this whole subject of initiative and "git up and git." I was invited, after I had finished speaking, to spend the evening in the home of an old girl of mine who married a professor. She's welcome to him. [Laughter] She said to me, "Mr. Ellenwood, I think you're quite right about this quality of getting people started. It is terrible, the things that government does for everybody. They will never get so that they want to stand on their own feet." Well, I didn't debate it with her. I don't think the govern- ment is the worst factor in that situation. In fact, I think the home is. I watched her the next morning. They have a little boy whose name is George. They call him "Georgie." It shows what kind of people they are. [Laughter] Of course, George had to be in school at nine o'clock. She called him at eight. She called him again at eight-ten. She called him again at eight-twenty. At eight-twenty-five, she yanked hfci our. She did every- thing for him. She found his pants anil put him in them. [Laughter] She picked up his things. She gloated over him. She made him eat what she thought was a L.rood breakfast. He didn't like it. I didn't like it. either. [Laughter] And after he got out on the sidewalk with some of his little friends, she yelled out at him, "Georgie, have you got your hanky?" I didn't 56 American Association of School Administrators think it was any of her business. Besides he was the kind of boy who could do well without a hanky. [Laughter] Yet she was finding fault with the government! [Laughter] Whether Georgie got to school on time or not was none of her business. My observation is that every school has one old battle axe just for that purpose. [Laughter] But if I had said to her, "Listen, Sadie, you have been finding fault with the government, but I've watched you this morning and you haven't let George do a thing for himself. You've dressed him, you've fed him, you combed him, you asked him about his hanky. How is he ever going to develop any self-initiative with you hanging over him?" If I had said that to her, she would have been mad. How do I know? Because I did and she was. [Laughter] But put that down in your book, my friends, as the second basic quality. I want my boy, first of all, to be intelligent, and I want him to be a self- starter. May I name quickly the third quality? It is also hard to define. With only the first two, he may become dangerous and destructive and selfish, and so he has to have this quality — the quality of conscientiousness. I would like to define that, too, because I think it is something that can be worked on. This conscientiousness that I am talking about is no vague, indefinite quality, imbedded inside him. It is something much more real than that. When I was a boy, I was taught that every boy had a conscience, like a bell hanging on him, and if he were ever tempted to do anything wrong, the bell would ring out. Mine didn't even tinkle. [Laughter] I should like to define conscientiousness, and here, again, I cannot give credit because I don't know who gave this definition first, but to me it is the greatest definition of conscientiousness that I know. Conscientiousness is your judgment when you use only your best quality; not bigotry but brotherhood; not prejudice but reason; not cowardice but courage; not laziness but energy. When, God help you, you call up all the finer qualities inside you and use them without fear or favor to come to a judgment, that is your conscience. It may be good or it may be bad, depending on how many good qualities you have. Surely it is a vital factor in education. I haven't time here to do anything more than list these, but if I could give my boy these three qualities, I would rather give him these than any- thing else. I want him to be intelligent and I want him to be creative and I want him to be conscientious. I know all of these are personal and I sup- pose we could differ, and I certainly am not the one to talk about method. There have been things said here this morning, for instance, that would indicate a different methodology than I prefer. 1 lived in that center of culture, Brooklyn [laughter], ever since our kids could walk. They have gone to schools wher^ there was no such thing as segregation. My kids have played with every kind of kid and dragged them home to our back yard. I think that probably the single greatest contribution that Brooklyn public schools have made to my kids is that they have permitted all the children — which, incidentally, is the theme of the annual book of the New York City schools — to live together. [Applause] I don't argue that; I just express it ( rENER \l. Si:ssi()NS 57 as the way I like. We live in a time when there are bound to he many differ- ences of opinion. We will struggle ahead and do the best we can because we are really just at the beginning of knowing how to handle people. There are no definite answers. May I close with this: I was sitting in my chair one night at eleven- thirty. My chair is the only decent chair in the house. I bought and paid for it out of my own allowance. [Laughter] I was sitting in my chair when my daughter came downstairs. She said, "Pop, I just got a 'phone call from Henry. He wants to pick me up and take me out for a couple of dances. Can I go?" There was the issue. We ought to know the answer to that. We have lived thousands of years. There is no one here who knows the answer to that. I ought to know the answer to it. I wrote a book on young people. I have to read other books so I will have something to put in my book. [Laughter] But that is just an illustration of what a little start we have made in the science of people and how individualized we must become. Eleven-thirty was late to me, at least getting on into the afternoon. Besides, this place wasn't exactly a center of culture, and, between you and me, I never was so hot for Henry, either. [Laughter] There is the issue. I was just about to say "No" — and I cite this to show you how we don't know and how many of us happen to differ. I was just about to say "No" when a principle popped up, a real principle, too. "Never stifle an impulse" — fresh from Columbia! [Laughter] I didn't want to start stifling my children's impulses, so I was debating the matter when my daughter spoke up and said, "Listen, Papa, are you paying any attention to me or are you going off into one of your vacant moods again?" so I started to debate again when another principle popped up, and this was a humdinger, too. Is your child an introvert or an extrovert? We ought to be worried about that. I was debating that one when my daughter spoke up and said, "Listen, Jimmy, the joint will be closed if you don't make up your mind pretty fast!" [Laughter] So I made up my mind. After all, I am a man, not a mouse. I am the head of the family. I looked her right in the face and said, "Young lady, you seem to forget you are speaking to your father. ^ on turn right around and go back upstairs. Ask your mother!" [Applause] President Hunt: Later on, in your behalf, I am going to press Dr. Ellenwood for the answer [laughter and applause] and then when I meet you on the Boardwalk, I'll tell you what happened. NEWSPAPERS AND SCHOOLS APPRAISE THEIR COMMON PURPOSES . \ p praisa] of the Schools by an Editor BRWIN D. CANHAM, EDITOR, THE CHRISTIAN' SCIENCE MONITOR, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS President Hunt: We in school administration know well the influence and the power of the press. Happy are we when our program is received sympathetically, with helpful interpretation, on the part of these molders 58 American Association of School Administrators of public opinion. The great newspaper which Erwin D. Canham serves as editor, the Christian Science Monitor, has always been in the vanguard of journalism and realizes the importance of education and seeks through intelligent coverage to bring its full import to its readers. Education has been served well by the Monitor and such acknowledgment is gratefully made as I present that editor, who, following his graduation from Bates College and the fulfilment of a Rhodes scholarship, has served that great newspaper in varying capacities, becoming editor in 1945. Mr. Erwin D. Canham, who speaks to us on the subject, "Newspapers and Schools Ap- praise Their Common Purposes." Mr. Canham: Mr. Chairman, in calling upon me to speak after Dr. Ellenwood, you have placed me behind the most luminous eight-ball of my career. [Laughter] Anybody who would have the job of holding the attention of this distinguished audience at this point is foolhardy and has been pushed into a situation which he should have had sense enough to avoid. [Laughter] Let me, at this moment at least, ignore the brilliance, the experience, and the aphorisms that Dr. Ellenwood has left with you, and pick up my open- ing remarks from Dr. Rose. I may say, though, that I nsked Dr. Ellen- wood what the answer was and he wouldn't tell. I thought I might scoop your chairman. [Laughter] Dr. Rose mentioned the very great importance of diagnosis. I would like to share with you at this point a diagnosis which has been reached by the distinguished savants of Harvard University concerning the Russian problem. I was talking a few days ago with my good friend, Professor Donald Mackay, who is heading a project which is rather intensively studying the Russians, and he told me that they had found the answer. "The trouble is," he said, "that the Russians swaddle their babies. Not only do they swaddle their babies, but they include their arms in the swaddling process, and they continue the swaddle for approximately a full year. At the end of this year," said Dr. Mackay, "the infant has been reduced to a state of exasperated frustration, so fierce that it is perfectly adequate to explain all the international phenomena of the Soviet Union today." And others will remember that this swaddling technic, which was used, I think, by almost all, if not all, of the American Indians, also had some- thing to do with producing a fierce and quarrelsome civilization. Whether the good Indians were not swaddled and the bad Indians were is 'well beyond my competence and we will just forget all about that. I think that I will abandon editorial prerogative this morning, largely because I have to. Editors, of course, are accustomed to telling everybody what they ought to do, and knowing more about other people's business than their own. The plain fact of the matter is that I am not equipped to tell you either what is wrong or what is right with the schools. All I can do this morning is to talk or to think out loud, more or less, with you for a few moments about the problems which face each of us about equally at this moment in history. < rl NERAL SESSIONS 59 I don't think it is narrow nationalism; 1 think it is perfectly self-evident fact to recognize that the peace and security and the future of world civiliza- tion in our time and in time to come depends at this moment, very largely indeed, upon the intelligent decision of the American people. It depends upon the emergence in Americans and the application of those qualities which Dr. Ellenwood has talked about. It means that you and I, as mutually associated educators and editors, bear today in renewed and in acute measure the greatest of responsibilities. There isn't much time, and we must help Americans not only to be well informed but to be able to use their information. We must awaken Ameri- cans and prepare them to accept the moral obligation to think. That phrase is my way of saying the three things that Dr. Ellenwood has so clearly and wittily put before you. For my purposes, I wrap it up in one word or one verb — to think. There is no need today to spell out the crisis of our time. It is quite apparent that the whole world faces the challenge of survival. And the American people hold the key. Not that this can be really a Pax Americana in the sense of a dominated peace. Peace will not come through domination. It will come through unification. And Americans, more than all others, can contribute to unification. The American people must understand these facts. They must be able to think. And the school is where they should learn to think. It is not more facts that we need, but a capacity to use facts — however few. The shepherd on the mountainside may know few facts, but his com- munion with nature may well have taught him how to use his facts with unerring wisdom. The learned ignoramus is an old friend of ours. The challenge is use. And, of course, the over-all trend of American education is toward use. It is toward decision and action. It seeks to rise above emotion. It would conquer prejudice. But these goals must be approached a good deal more swiftly and surely if we are to do our imperative part in saving Western civilization. American schools are often criticized because their graduates do not retain enough facts. In the February issue of that not exactly professional journal, Redbook Magazine, William A. Lydgate, editor of the Gallup Poll, takes schools to task because the people approached by his ques- tioners do not know enough facts. He says that fewer than half of American adults know how many United States senators there are from each state, and that one-half don't know who Harold E. Stassen is. When you and I listen to the more generous quiz programs, our hair is likely to curl at the gross ignorance on display. What does this prove? That the schools did not cram enough facts i 1 1 1 < > their students' heads? That the newspapers are failing to be read? No. It proves that we did not and do not teach people adequately how to handle facts. We have failed to arouse people to the importance of informed and intelligent thinking. We have not had enough participation. And in a democracy that is fatal. 60 American Association of School Administrators Let me analyze the failure of newspapers first. American newspapers have the largest circulations in history. They are consuming over 65 per- cent of all newsprint manufactured in the world, which is a sadly un- balanced situation. These newspapers are printing a good many facts. Our methods of gathering news have improved. We are less politically biased than at any time in earlier American history. Newspapers are becoming more and more like public utilities, which of course increases their re- sponsibilities and makes the danger of regulation greater unless the re- sponsibilities are accepted and acted upon. But in many American newspapers — certainly in those of largest circula- tion— an elephantine new function overshadows the primary duty of purvey- ing significant news. It is what may be called the function of entertainment. Instead of being given news which will help them become more alert citizens — will help them think — readers are being given the pabulum of so-called "comic strips," of gossip and movie and night-club columns, of the sensational and sensuous and sordid raised out of all proportion to its place in human life. These things have crowded their way into American newspapers, driving significant news farther and farther into the back- ground, because readers have not learned the necessity of demanding some- thing better. The precious heritage of free speech and a free press is today adulterated by a mess of entertainment pottage. Now we must speak to people where they live, in terms they understand and that interest them. This challenge is being accepted to a degree by American newspapers, and I know it is by the schools. But more technical advancement will not be enough. The trouble lies far deeper. In terms that Americans understand, all of us concerned with their education must awaken them to this hour of decision. More than that, we must help them to add up the facts of their time. We stand at the crest of a century and a half of aggressive materialism. During this time, man has achieved great triumphs in the control of his material environment. But he has not learned to control himself. Norman Angell recently wrote that "this generation on the whole is the most educated of which we have any record, and the one most likely grievously to hurt itself with instruments of its own devising." If we stand in that peril — and we manifestly do — then this generation may be the most edu- cated but it is certainly not the best educated of which we have record. Our educators — in school and press — must complete with all speed the task they have begun. We must teach men the truth about machines. We must help them to think beyond sterile materialism. We must show them that in this Western world we are the custodians of a precious heritage. This is the doctrine and the practice of man's invincible brotherhood, the infinite significance of every individual man and woman and child. Through our schools, through our press, we must awaken the Western world to the revolutionary spiritual power which lies at our hands. We know that the conflict of our times is a war of ideas, and that peace will be made in the minds of men. But we tend to forget that we have inherited weapons of peculiar power. We wear without knowing it the ( rENERAL SESSIONS 61 shining armor of truth — the truth that man lives not to serve the state, but to make the state serve him — the truth that man's individuality is infinitely important and must and can be proved in social action. We must bring to the Western world a resurgence of knowing, not of doubt ; of thinking, not of vegetating ; of faith and of works rooted in a long and proven tradition. It is a moral awakening we can bring to our nation and the world ; an awakening to the dynamic power which is within our grasp. We have battered our heads among the trees long enough. Let us look at the forest. We will see a society demonstrating — albeit imperfectly — the greatest values yet known to man. We will see a revolutionary society in the true sense. For it is a society capable of freeing every man and woman and child within it. Already it has given to most of them the potential of freedom. When we shake off the grip of this century of materialism — and I believe we are beginning to shake it off because we have to — we will use our mag- nificent tools for salvation instead of suicide. Awakening to our heritage and its dynamic usability will not come with a thunderclap. It will come every day in some human consciousness. The true task of education is to bring about that awakening. We have the tools, though most of them can stand sharpening. In press and radio and film we have the mass media of communication. We are a sleeping giant. Once in this decade the sleeping giant awoke, and carried through the effort needed to protect and save our society from external aggression. The danger today is more internal than external. Together we can bring about the awakening, we can open the door to a new golden age. We can do it — you and I — not through any new panacea or trick formula — but by the simple acceptance and application of the truths we know. When enough of us do that — when the number of thinkers has reached critical mass — we will start the chain reaction that will save mankind. FRIENDSHIP HOUR Monday Afternoon, February 23, 1948 Bv virtually unanimous request the "Friendship Hour" inaugurated at the convention a year earlier was repeated. President Hunt and members of the Executive Committee cordially invited those attending the convention to join in greeting old friends and new from 4:30 to 6:00 p. m. on Monday in the Ballroom of the Auditorium. Background music. Light refreshments. No receiving line, no formality. In commenting on the Friendship Hour at the general session that evening President Hunt said, "This is a great convention and your cooperation is making it so. There were literally thousands out this afternoon for the social hour ; friendships were renewed and new friendships initiated at this very delightful feature of our annual convention." FOURTH GENERAL SESSION Monday Evening, February 23, 1948 President Hunt: Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. I have been asked to enlist your cooperation for just a moment or two that this scene may be recorded for posterity. To my right, you will notice a camera that in a moment will revolve. I have been requested to secure your co- operation to the extent of facing that camera, turning to the camera, and then remaining in a fairly stable position until you know that the camera has cleared the line of vision. The process will get under way in just a moment and we shall be most appreciative of your usual fine and charac- teristic cooperation. [The photograph was taken.] President Hunt: I have been asked to express appreciation on behalf of the cameraman. His comments were, "Thank you, doc!" [Laughter] I've been called other things besides that so I count that very graciously and very gratefully. And thank you ! CONCERT BY BOSTON UNIVERSITY BAND Conducted by warren s. freeman [For musical program see page 231.] President Hunt: I know you would wai\t me to express appreciation for the very, very delightful concert we have just enjoyed, to thank the young artists of the Boston University Band, their director, Professor Freeman, and their delightful soloist, Betty Jane Smith. [Applause] OUR EDUCATIONAL STAKE IN GERMANY herman b. wells, cultural affairs adviser to the military governor of germany; president, indiana university (on leave) President Hunt: We turn now to a portion of the evening program which I know not only you but all of America has anticipated by vixtue of the two speakers who distinguish our Association by their presence this evening. A few weeks ago, American newspapers reported a college president arrested in the Russian Zone of Germany. Those of us who have known Dr. Herman B. Wells and his propensity for authentic research were not surprised that his introduction to his new responsibilities as cultural affairs adviser to the military governor of Germany took the shape it did. Herman Wells has always had an inquiring mind. It was just another illustration of his wanting to know what it was all about. Happily for the important job that he is doing and for us, his release was soon effected, or we should not be privileged as we are this evening to hear of our educational stake in Germany. [62] General Sessions 63 Since 1935, Dr. Wells has been associated with Indiana University, as president since 1938, from which institution he is now on leave. His other interests are varied and reflect the interesting personality that is his. He comes to us directly from his present assignment abroad and purposely to address this convention, for which we are most appreciative. I am happy to present Dr. Herman B. Wells. Dr. Wells. Mr. Wells: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Perhaps, after that introduction, I should have appeared with a Cossack cap, boots, and a sword in order to do a sword dance for you, but after this display on the stage, I am afraid I would come off not so well by way of comparison if 1 attempted acrobatics, even Russian acrobatics. [Laughter] I have just returned from Germany — the battleground between the East and the West. In Germany we are participating in an experiment new to America. We are attempting, in conjunction with our allies, to reorient the thinking and culture of 65 million highly literate, proud, and stubborn people. Each of the four occupying powers is approaching the problem with slightly dif- ferent objectives and using slightly different methods. The theme of this conference, the expanding role of education, suggests that those of us who are concerned with education in America have re- sponsibilities which extend beyond our own school systems and universities, not only at home but also abroad. I wish, therefore, to discuss with you our educational stake in Germany and describe our responsibility. What does the struggle in Germany mean to us? What are the problems that confront us? What aid can American education give? The problem of guiding German education is not a mere academic prob- lem. It directly affects our own future, and upon its solution may depend not only our own wellbeing, but our national safety and the peace of the world. For I agree with Congressman Judd that Germany is the key to the future of Europe. The political complexion of Europe and, of course, the German mind will be a decisive factor in the decision with reference to the direction that Germany is to take. The solution of the German prob- lem is as vital to us as any domestic problem we face today. American education can and must accept its responsibility. What is our stake in German education? I believe that it is, in broad terms, the protection of democracy from those forces which threaten the rights of man. This calls for a new peaceful democratic German nation in a peaceful world society. Democracy of a practical, working variety has been and is unfortunately almost unknown in Germany. The majority of Germans are extremely nationalistic and, from all evidence at hand, they are more nationalistic in defeat than before. Except under strongest pressure, few have shown the slightest interest in reforming their schools, their press, or their intellectual pattern. A stable peace can- not exist until the German people have acquired a new outlook. Germans are satisfied with prewar German institutions and especially so with their schools. They are convinced that their system of education has '-■■■ » w am ** '■-" --sS * sit The Monday evening audience of seven thousand heard ad- dresses by General Omar N. Bradley and Herman G. JVells, President Herald C.Hunt, presiding. Platform guests included members of AASA Advisory Council, presidents of state associations of school administrators, Boston University Band. I W-.. r '*- been and is the best in the world, and that conquerors have no right to be concerned about such matters. The view is supported even by some high ranking churchmen and uni- versity professors. Although willing to remove nazi patterns, in so doing they would return to the educational pattern of pre-World War I — a form that was essentially authoritarian and resulted in caste segregation which helped pave the way for Hitler. Before analyzing the situation which confronts us today, let us enumerate the fundamental assumptions which are the basis for our educational effort in Germany. We must assume that it is possible for a whole nation to make a radical change in its cultural and political life, and that there are in Germany latent forces of sufficient strength to initiate and carry through a new social and political program of democratic character. We must also assume that the desired change can take place only under favorable conditions over which the German people have only partial [64] If,x"tl • I «t*VJ^ iTOMI . • "~ *> (Picture continued on pages 66 and 67) control, and that the United States, as an occupying power, will use the resources and time necessary for the satisfactory completion of the program. As background, let me sketch for you the educational picture as it was in the U. S. Zone of Germany at the time we assumed control at the close of the war. The entire school machinery had disintegrated ; one-fifth of all school- rooms had been destroyed and another one-fifth was badly damaged ; there were no usable books, maps, or other school materials ; universities and teachers colleges no longer existed ; few teachers without nazi taint were available; and the school children were roaming the streets. Despite such chaos, immediate steps were taken toward limited educa- tional rehabilitation. Orders were issued to put the children back in school and in October 1945 the schools reopened on a part-time basis. Instead of the 50,000 teachers required, only 15,000 were available, or one teacher for each 85 or 90 pupils. Today the situation, according to American standards, is still far from satisfactory; but 99Vii percent of all children of compulsory school age are in school on a half-time schedule, and there is one teacher for each 60 pupils, despite the fact that several hundred thousand more children are in school in the American Zone than ever before, due to the influx of refugees. [65] .»*v* f***^ /" -»- , *i. !l «. Sjff w. * ? The Monday evening audience in the Atlantic City Auditorium (Picture continued from page 65) There are now eighteen institutions of university rank in operation, with an enrolment of over 50,000 students, almost twice the normal number for this area of Germany. Forty emergency teacher-training institutions have been opened, and about 20,000 new teachers have been trained or recruited from other professions and from the refugees. Over five million new textbooks have been printed for the schools, with a promise of four million more per quarter during 1948. This indicates that progress has been made, of which I may speak freely, for all of this was accomplished before I joined the occupation staff. This record is a tribute not only to our own staff, but also to the German administrators and teachers. However, the accomplishment of these neces- sary emergency tasks has left our limited staffs little time for their real objective, the reorienting of German thinking and making democracy un- derstood and felt by the Germans themselves. That work has hardly started. Perhaps a story current in Berlin just now will illustrate the German's inability to grasp the real significance of the American meaning of democ- racy. It concerns a school child who came to his father with the question : "Father, what is this democracy we hear so much about?" [66] m w> 9 f |.«C To which the father replied : "Democracy is when -a-a . . It is ah ah . . Well, you see, it's like this: The Democrats are the opposite of the Fascists, and for that reason they are enemies." "That's right, father," the son said, "That is exactly what our teacher said, too." After the father had breathed a sigh of relief, the son continued: "We play Democracy at recess time. We are the Democrats, and anyone who doesn't want to march with us is a Fascist — and we beat him up!" A recent experience of one of our staff members likewise illustrates the point. This man was discussing the relative merits of the U. S. schools and German schools with a group of German teachers. "Do German teach- ers get any refresher courses to bring them up to date?" he asked. "Oh, yes," he was assured by one of the Germans. "Before anyone is allowed to teach in Germany today, he must take a six-weeks course and learn Democracy!" I think all of us wish it could be taught so quickly ! The process of reorienting the German mind will require a long time even under the most favorable conditions — and conditions are far from [67] 68 American Association of School Administrators favorable. No thinking person would expect any country to reorient its cultural pattern in the short span of thirty months, particularly when the process is being stimulated by an occupying enemy power. Let us consider some of the major factors that make reeducation most difficult. First, of course, is the fact that the task must be carried on in a setting of unbelievable devastation and destitution. In six years of fighting, Ger- many lost her industry, her homes, and the cream of her manpower. Many of the larger cities were as much as 75 percent destroyed by Allied ground and air attacks. The extent of the destruction defies description ; it must be seen to be comprehended. The housing problem is not unfamiliar in America, but in Germany it is critical. More than 30 percent of all the houses in the American zone were destroyed and with them all the clothing, furniture, and essentials of everyday living. The population density in the U. S. Zone is nearly two persons per room ! It is even higher in university towns faced with the necessity of absorbing students into the already overcrowded homes of the city. The depressed economic condition of the German people is a second important factor. The average German today is concerned primarily with the three basic needs of life: food, shelter, and clothing. How to get them is his main objective. Due to the breakdown of industry, it is impossible to get sufficient food and clothing, even if one possesses the money to pur- chase such items. The city resident in Germany spends at least half of each day trying to secure the barest essentials ; thus little time is left for cultural pursuits. A third great factor is the German mind itself. Authoritarianism, an unwillingness to accept personal responsibility, self-satisfied provincialism, a conviction that might makes right, and political ineptitude are some of its characteristics. American educators attempting to solve the German problem will have to work with this type of mind, and, believe me, it is not an easy task. The spirit of authoritarianism and obedience pervades all phases of Ger- man life. Human relations, including the home, school, church, and gov- ernmental institutions are based on a pattern of order-giving and order- taking. Directly related to authoritarianism is the ever-present tendency to shirk personal responsibility for civic decisions by referring the decision to government officials and then only to those at the highest level. Few Ger- mans feel the slightest personal responsibility for the Nazi catastrophe or the slightest guilt for anything that has taken place in Europe since 1932. Unfortunately also, the Germans have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the theory of their unquestioned supremacy among the peoples of the world. This is not primarily a matter of Nazi propaganda but goes much deeper. German thought and behavior patterns have been built up over many decades, and Hitler was only a passing manifestation of deeply rooted beliefs. General Sessions 69 Politically free institutions are not products of the German soil. Unlike America, France, and England, which threw off yokes of oppression by a revolution of the people, freedom was imported into Germany. It first came wrapped in the uniform of Napoleon's legionnaires, and more recently in 1918 and 1945 it arrived in olive drab. Freedom was something foreign and intimately associated with conquering armies and the defeat of the German soldiers. As early as the eighteenth century some Germans were impressed and intrigued by the concept of "equality, liberty, and fraternity," but most were swayed by their love of country and sympathy for her in military defeat. Patriotically, they chose the sword of revenge and denied themselves the liberalism of France and America. Unfortunately for freedom and democracy, the choice brought success in the beginning. Under Bismarck, aggressive wars against Denmark, Austria, and France culminated in the creation of a unified German state — a state that was not the product of tolerance, freedom, and respect for the individual as practiced by the West, but a state that came into being through artificially nurtured hatreds, sup- pression, and military might. Germany owed its very existence to militarism and aggression, and even the failure of Kaiser Wilhelm in World War I did not destroy the confidence of the German people in the philosophy that "might makes right." Political ineptitude is another striking characteristic of the German. He considers politics a science and not an art. He does not understand that compromise, openly arrived at, is the very essence of democratic government. The German strives for perfection — if he feels he cannot solve a problem absolutely, he often refuses to attempt any solution at all. The democratic society is well aware of its imperfections and attempts to remove as many as possible. It never believes that it can cure all its faults, but such political realism is beyond the understanding of the politically immature German. A final factor that inhibits German initiative is the tense political situation in which the German must live from day to day. He is constantly faced with the question: "What does the future hold for my country?" He feels himself a pawn in which the West would make him a democrat and the East would make him a communist, while in his own heart he wants to return to the old days of being a true German. Many Germans feel that an East-West conflict would be to the advantage of Germany and are will- ing to play one side against the other. Others do not think that the time has come to cast their lot with either side. Having seen what happened to the Democrats after the Weimar Republic and to the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, some potential leaders prefer to remain on the sidelines and wait for the final victor to emerge. All this does not mean that progress has been lacking. Quite the reverse is true. The negative phase of our occupation task is nearly over. De- militarization of Germany is completed and the external vestiges of Nazism have been removed. The positive phase, which includes reconstruction, re- habilitation, reorientation, and reeducation, is under way. There are those, and some of you are among those, who have criticized 70 American Association of School Administrators what they considered to be a relative lack of emphasis on educational re- orientation up to this time, but I for one think that General Clay has shown the same wisdom in this respect that he has demonstrated in directing our whole occupational program and policy. His emphasis and timing have been right. He is one of the great public servants of our time, tirelessly and unselfishly devoting himself to a gruelling task. Our policies also have been benefited from the beginning by the experience and humane courage of Ambassador Murphy. Ambassador Murphy is extremely experienced in the intricate matter of European politics and history. He is a man of wide experience and great ability. Public welfare and security were the major considerations of our early occupation period. Germany had to be disarmed, the people had to be fed, steps had to be taken to prevent a resurgence of militarism and Nazism, a prostrate transportation system had to be revived, health problems had to be solved, and our troops had to be protected. The fact that in the two and one-half years of occupation there has not been a single serious epidemic nor a major outbreak of violence is eloquent testimony to the soundness of our policy. Now military government has reached a turning point. The positive phase is ahead, and in anticipation of that our occupation machinery is un- dergoing comprehensive overhauling. In the reorganization a new emphasis is being placed upon education and reorientation efforts. Whereas most operational divisions in military government are being streamlined and their activities reduced, educational and cultural relations are being lifted from subordinate branches to top divisional status and are being given increased staff and responsibilities. Education and cultural programs are to have a new high priority. Soon the army will surrender to civilians the direction of the occupation effort. Military leadership has been successful in the negative phase. This record challenges civilian leadership to be equally successful in the positive phase. As a part of this new emphasis steps are being taken also to establish in the United States an organization to stimulate a broad cultural exchange program with Germany. We are planning an organization that will be directed by a group of public-spirited citizens who are distinguished leaders in education and the professions — individuals whose reputations and influence will enable them to work with and through existing American foundations, councils, and institutions. The philosophy of a cultural exchange program with Germany is in itself challenging. Here is a great new field for the expanding role of education. For more than a decade the German people were barred by the Nazis from the thought of the rest of the world. They are unaware of many of the advances that have been made in such fields as education, the social sciences, medicine, art, and literature. They are hungry for spiritual and intellectual contact with the world bevond their borders. The demo- cratic nations must satisfy that hunger. We must send some of our most vigorous educational leaders to Germany. We must bring German teachers to the United States. There must be active interchange of educational ( ii stR \i. Sessions 71 journals and scholarly publications. The effort needs to be broad enough to include all areas of cultural life. A widespread exchange program is the most effective method of presenting our democratic ideals to the German people. Hut such a program will require long and sustained effort, intelligent planning, and the financial support of the American people. American educators, I believe, have a vital role to play. You can help to develop public opinion in support of our cultural policies in Germany. Military government does not wish to graft American educational forms upon the German school system, but rather totoffcr from the school system of the United States and of other like-minded countries those features which contribute to the democratic development of the child. Reorientation should not be Americanization. It should be an effort to build allegiance to universal values which, it is hoped, will become the common denominator of all nations. We need our best educational brains in this task. We need educators and administrative leaders who are willing to sacrifice their own convenience and immediate professional opportunities to accept positions on our staff in Germany. We need men and women who are willing to go for more than visits — useful as these may be for certain purposes. Our aim cannot be achieved unless some of our best men and women are willing to go for a period of years. We need financial and official support. We need school superintendents who will recommend to their school boards that one of their teachers go to Germany to teach, and in exchange that a German teacher be permitted to come to America to teach for a semester. We need city superintendents who will provide a year's internship for an elementary school principal who is potentially a progressive German educational leader. We need elementary schools that will adopt the children of a German elementary school, correspond with them, and help provide school materials that are in such short supply over there. We need an exchange of faculty members between American and German universities. We need university student bodies that will do for the German university students what I have just proposed for the elementary school — adopt an entire group and send them much needed food, clothing, and supplies. Above all else, we need the support of all American school people in the effort to kindle and keep alive in America a sustained interest in the importance of developing a new Germanv. A wise scholar has just completed a thorough survey of our reorientation work in Germany. He reports a significant conversation that he had with a young military government officer, a young man in bis twenties. This young officer was leading a lonely life. As a member of a three-man tram in a countv seat, he was isolated not only from American social life of the larger German centers, but also from German social life because he was one of the conquerors. He wanted nothing so much as to get back to America and resume his civilian career. His life in Germany was a round 72 American Association of School Administrators of frustration and loneliness, yet he intended to stick with it. He said, and I leave his words with you as my parting thought : "Either we let Germany go down in ruin, in which case the rest of us become involved in its aftermath, or we help Germany make something better of herself. We are in a paradoxical position: The Germans brought this upon themselves and upon the world, but we cannot afford the pleasure of revenge and punishment. We must try to help them become a better people, and in so doing, we become a better people ourselves." President Hunt: Thank you, Dr. Wells, for that illuminating and informative analysis of our educational stake in Germany. We wish you well. We wish you every success in this important and significant assign- ment. We assure you of our interest and of our cooperation. SECURITY BELONGS TO YOU GENERAL OMAR N. BRADLEY, CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES ARMY President Hunt: The American Association of School Administrators has the unique distinction this evening of presenting the new Chief of Staff of the United States Army in his first major public address since his assuming this important post earlier this year. Of the accomplishments of General Omar Bradley, this audience knows too much to necessitate other than the briefest of briefings. The son of a Missouri schoolmaster, a graduate of the public schools of that state, a West Pointer (class of 1915), he was first in his class to become a brigadier- general on the recommendation of the incumbent Secretary of State, whose former position as Chief of Staff he now occupies. A brilliant war record, first with his own division, the 82d Infantry, then in the North African theater, Tunisia, Sicily, and with the First Army in France on D-Day, St. Lo, and finally into Germany and the attempted destruction of the Siegfried Line. General Bradley earned successfully and successively the stars that indicate the major general, lieutenant general, and the full gen- eral. At the head of the largest business in the world, General Bradley administered the Veterans Administration program in a way that brought him recognition and commendation from the military and from the public alike. Peculiarly fitted to serve our country as Chief of Staff, General Bradley brings to this new and important assignment of his, qualities that make him respected and admired, a fine reflection in public confidence and support that bespeak understanding and cooperation. We are deeply appreciative of his taking the time from a busy schedule to come to us here in annual convention to talk to us on the subject, "Security Belongs to You." The Chief of Staff, General Bradley. [The audience arose and applauded.] General Bradley: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a great pleasure to be here this evening and join with so many people who are intensely interested in the education and welfare of our school people, who General Sessions 73 are our future citizens. This matter of Caking pictures here is what you educators would call — well, I don't know what you would call it, but in the army it's like giving out your instructions, as we do in the army sometimes, and you have a good-looking girl go by and you lose the interest of the class. [Laughter] Such comfort as we may take from the frequent assurance that a major conflict is neither imminent — nor inevitable — should be chastened by the fact that we are passing through a period of exhaustion. The drain of war on the industrial and manpower resources of nations has temporarily exhausted much of their vigor. It has bled them severely of the strength required to support armed forces in warfare. Moreover, with development of the atom bomb, the enormous risks incurred today in policies which may lead to deliberate aggression demand force in excess of the immediate capabilities of most surviving nations. As a result, there has come to us out of the impoverishment of war tem- porary relief from the fear of aggression. This feeling of security, however, has resulted not from a renunciation of power but from the fact that much of the world is as yet too exhausted to fight. Throughout Europe and Asia — the chaos, hunger, and poverty of na- tions have exposed them to the danger of political conquest. In this tragic era of exhaustion, political infiltration can readily be substituted for armed aggression. And while the methods are dissimilar the results are the same. Both end eventually in the enslavement and exploitation of the weak by the strong. Although exhaustion may have brought a temporary guarantee against immediate or deliberate armed aggression, it has nevertheless also created a new and alarming peril. For unless we halt this conquest of hunger and chaos — by aiding in the reconstruction of Europe and Asia — we may suf- fer strategic defeats. In our desire to achieve peace through United Nations, we must acknowl- edge that nations may employ political opportunism to make this task more difficult. Although eventual reconstruction of war damage will limit their opportunities for exploitation, it will likewise shatter much of the trust we can place in this security of exhaustion. For as nations replenish their manpower, rehabilitate their skills, and rebuild their plants they will like- wise regain their capacity to undertake policies that in the end may run the risk of armed aggression. This period of rehabilitation is the deadline against which we work dur- ing this passing period of exhaustion. For if we come to this deadline with no better security guarantees than we have at present, we risk the danger of conflict. Security will be gained not through singular dependence on long-range aircraft, mobile land forces, or naval might but only upon a balanced trust in all three as they are used in support of United Nations. I do not hold with those persons who contend that war is inevitable — that it is instinctive to the nature of mankind. If we despair in the hope 74 American Association of School Administrators of averting war we shall become accessories in the events that lead to an- other. However, aggression cannot be prevented simply by the renunciation of war on the part of those of us who abhor it. There is little to choose from between those who would convert the world into garrison states and those who would put their trust in the semantics of peace. Both are the apostles of war for — historically — their divergent paths have led again and again to disaster. Our best assurance against the inevitability of another war lies in some measure of universal subordination of absolute national sovereignty to a community of nations and in the support of that body with the full strength of all peoples. There is no absolute security either in full armament or dis- armament; in militarism or in pacifism [applause]. However, if a system of international law is to be applied equitably to all nations it must offer them redress against the wrongdoing of others and penalize them for their own violations. In the long history of mankind, the greatest deterrent to aggression has not been the fear of condemnation. It has been the fear of retaliation by an equal or superior force. When nations emerge from this period of ex- haustion, their willingness to risk political policies which may lead either accidentally or deliberately into armed aggression will be determined not so much by their moral scruples as by this fear of retaliation. For this reason, I shall urge the American people again and again as I urge you today, do not give comfort to those nations who would risk aggres- sion. Do not discard the very deterrent they fear the most. As long as there are nations which would resort to intimidation and force, we invite aggression if we lose our ability to strike back. Throughout the United States there are men of goodwill who contend that our military strength means repudiation of the United Nations. On the contrary, as long as the United States is a champion of United Nations — so long will its armed strength serve to benefit rather than threaten the progress of that endeavor. In an age where the rapid shrinkage of both time and space favors aggression instead of defense, we cannot rely safely upon only our war potential. The advantage of a superior war potential has been lessened by the lightning delivery and mass destructiveness of modern weapons of war. For precisely this reason, the effectiveness of any adequate security force depends to a critical degree upon the readiness of its trained man- power reserves. Machine warfare accentuates this need ; it does not replace it. As successive wars have created more scientific weapons they have spread the conflagration more rapidly about the entire world — multiplying in rapid progression the compelling need for men. For centuries, men have sought a cheap and easy way to destroy each other by applying science to war. Each new weapon has not only multiplied the appalling cost of conflict, but it has involved more and more people until this last war consumed the totaj energies of entire peoples. At the General Si ssions 75 same time, the casualties of machine warfare have penetrated deeper and deeper into the civilian front. As long as there are wars hetween men, they will he fought by men. There is not within the \ isihle future any form of supersonic salvation from the human sacrifice war entails. I cannot conceive of any change in the natural law of warfare whereby each successive conflict does not hecome more consuming — more agonizing — more deadly — more costly and horrihle than any which preceded it. A security force for the future must rely for its effectiveness on the instant ahility of its regular arms to strike swiftly and decisively at the enemy's heart. If aerial weapons are to he employed in sustained attack, we shall have to deny to the enemy those hases of value to him. And we shall have to seize and defend those bases of strategic importance to us. At the same time, we must have the trained manpower reserves to defend our own country, to mobilize a counter-attacking force against airborne or seaborne invasion, to police and reorganize those industrial centers sub- jected to initial attack. To maintain a peacetime professional force with sufficient manpower for this security mission wrould burden the American people with a ruinous drain on their resources. The very cost of so large and powerful a stand- ing force might even menace the people it w*as created to guard. A huge professional army would consume additional billions each year in critical tax income, depriving the American people of essential social and welfare services, perhaps even denying them educational opportunities which alone are productive of progress and growth. Like many another American, when universal military training was proposed as a democratic alternative to this specter of militarism — I searched my conscience freely to determine whether events justified this departure from our historic tradition. Because the danger to our security is not equally apparent to all Ameri- cans, and because it is a matter of judgment and conjecture — the choice with which we are confronted in universal military training is not an easy one of survival or extinction. Instead, we must ask ourselves if the perilous trend of today's events does not justify sacrifice for the nation's defense. When people contend that our security needs today are in open com- petition with social progress, that appropriations for the conduct of universal military training will deny funds for the support of education — I must in all candor ask them this question. What is the value of social progress — what is the value of education if eventually they are destroyed through our neglect of security needs? We dare never forget there is nothing we can create by our talents, nothing we can devise through science, nothing we can achieve through knowledge that war — if it comes — cannot destroy. Although there are collateral benefits of education and health in universal militarv training, these — in themselves — cannot possibly justify this pro- gram. The decision of the American people as to whether they will accept or reject such training must rest solely upon its value to the security of this nation. 76 American Association of School Administrators I have not come before you this evening to plead for your support on a military policy of the United States. It is the responsibility of your military forces to devise what it can conscientiously claim is adequate and reason- able provision for the security of this nation. And it is your responsibility as citizens to adjudge whether that provision is warranted by the disturbing movement in world conditions. As a soldier entrusted with the preparation of our nation's defense, I can find no satisfactory alternative to universal military training in any comparable expenditure or plan. However, I do not for a moment suggest that universal military training is a substitute for spiritual strength in a strong and unified nation. Nor do I contend that it precedes in importance a coordinated intelligence service, scientific research, industrial mobiliza- tion, civil defense, or a strong and powerful striking naval and air force. All are integral parts of an essential security program. Universal military training — unlike conscription — does not provide troops for the army; it is not a substitute for voluntary enlistment. For the trainees under this program would not be part of the army, they would not be subjected to Articles of War, and they would not be liable for over- seas service. As trainees they would simply be taught the rudiments of military service to prepare them for this task as part of an essential trained reserve. There are, unfortunately, some people who have chosen to regard universal military training as a device of the army to infect youth with a military fever — or as a deliberate scheme on the part of the army to perpetuate its influence in the civil life of the nation. In their efforts to propagandize opposition to universal military train- ing they have chosen to obscure the security need for this measure and concentrate instead on their own creation of a straw man on horseback. I do not challenge the sincerity of their alarm for they are reputable citi- zens of good conscience. But I do contend that they have distorted the issue beyond recognition, that they have ascribed to the army motives which are as repugnant to me as they are to them. [Applause] In the United States, the military has always been — and it must always be — subordinated to civil government. It exists purely as the instrument of the American people, responsible to them through a civilian secretary and dependent upon them for funds through a freely elected Congress. And while the military has admittedly produced some men with unyielding minds and authoritative instincts, it has also produced many more earnest, intelligent, and warm-hearted men who have served this nation honorably and who prize their human liberties and civil rights as jealously as their critics do theirs. [Applause] In its conduct of universal military training, the army would neither enrich itself nor increase its rank. Instead, it would expose itself year after year to the censure of hundreds of thousands of civilian trainees. It would bare itself to the critical and independent observation of millions of parents — many of whom would hold the army singularly responsible for the health, morals, and spiritual development of their youthful sons. Universal General Sessions 77 military training would not only confront the army with an appalling task in organization, procurement, and training but it would present us with a terrifying opportunity to fall flat on our faces. If this is a program of aggrandizement, I confess I don't know what it means. Although the army today is three times its prewar strength, the sub- stantial part of its effort is devoted to the mission of occupation. One out of every two soldiers in uniform today is on duty overseas. In this occupa- tion role, your army has inherited the backwash of a tragedy that started with German aggression almost a generation ago. While some critics of preparedness are quick to point out that excessive military strength can precipitate war as readily as excessive weakness can invite attack, they have hesitated to recall their own responsibility for the mental and moral confusion of many young men at the time they went to war. We cannot forget that too many American educators had failed to offer their intelligent young students sound intellectual inquiry into the origins of war and the need for defense. These educators as much as anyone else in the nation must share the responsibility for that mental unpreparedness which caused us to turn our back on seven years of aggres- sion— until eventually we awakened when it was dangerously late. If education is our best hope for peace, then education must share in our failure to achieve it. And today your burden is greater. After having created this atomic age, education cannot escape the responsibility for teaching men to live in it without destroying themselves. If we revert again to the doctrine of renunciation which teaches men the denial of their responsibilities in our common defense rather than their obligations, we may find ourselves headed toward another war — as con- fused and helpless as before. By the same token, education will risk disaster along with the others of our free institutions, if it teaches men that they can purchase security solely by gifts of food or by the construction of aircraft. Historically, those people who sought to avoid their personal responsibilities for the nation's defense perished with their mercenary armies. In this last war, we learned that we could not purchase safety simply by putting our wealth into the production of lend-lease equipment. Today if the United States is to forge an effective weapon of retaliation to be used in its own defense, the American people must be prepared to devote themselves as well as their wealth to it. To achieve the peace that has come to us through this period of exhaustion, the world has paid a frightful price. More than 20,000,000 people were killed. We alone suffered a million casualties; we spent three hundred billions in the process of destruction. Civilization cannot long endure these painful costs of conflict. If we are to survive, progress, and prosper — we must find a way to rid ourselves of war. FIFTH GENERAL SESSION Tuesday Morning, February 24, 1948 EDUCATION IN A DEMOCRACY Presentation of the 1948 Yearbook, The Expanding Role of Education PAUL B. JACOBSON, DEAN, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, EUGENE, OREGON; MEMBER, 1948 YEARBOOK COMMISSION 1QRESIDENT Hunt: Let me express a note of commendation and apprecia- tion to you who represent the early rising element of our convention. I hope you will feel amply rewarded. If not, please be assured that we are most appreciative of your consistent response to the timeliness of the hour. Won't you try to spread the gospel during the remaining general sessions? We turn now to the program of the morning. A customary and sig- nificant feature of our annual convention for the past quarter of a century has been the presentation of the yearbook of our Association. These year- books, as probably all of you are aware, are two years in preparation and reflect careful study and research on the part of the commission whose members are selected because of competence and interest in the field of specific inquiry. The members of the 1948 Yearbook Commission were appointed by Charles H. Lake, the 1945-46 President of the Association, who, on behalf of the Executive Committee, requested a study of the expanding role of education. The Commission in its deliberations found the theme significant, and it is hoped that the Association will find the yearbook just recently released a worthwhile contribution to the field of educational literature. Personally, it has been a privilege to be associated with the Commission members — the late Sherwood D. Shankland, for many years the Executive Secretary of our Association, to whom the yearbook is affectionately dedi- cated ; George A. Bowman, the President of Kent State University, Kent, Ohio; Lawrence G. Derthick, Superintendent of Schools of Chattanooga, Tennessee; John R. Emens, President of Ball State Teachers College, of Muncie, Indiana; Boyce M. Grier, Superintendent of Schools of Athens, Georgia; Paul B. Jacobson, Dean of the School of Education, University of Oregon ; Earl S. Johnson, Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago; Lawrence B. Perkins of the architectural firm of Perkins & Will, Inc., of Chicago; Miss Maycie Southall, Professor of Elementary Education, George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tennessee; and Terry Wickham, Superintendent of Schools at Hamilton, Ohio. I should like, in your behalf and in behalf of the Association, to welcome these members of the Yearbook Commission who are here on the plat- form this morning and ask them to stand that they may be recognized by you for their contribution. [Applause] I am happy indeed to acknowledge [78] ( Iknkr a i- Sessions 79 the sincerity and the faithfulness with which they discharged their assign- ment. Although they are all competent to do so, responsibility for presenting the 1948 Yearbook to this convention falls by Commission selection to Dr. Jacobson, Dean of the School of Education of the University of Oregon, formerly superintendent of schools of Davenport, Iowa, and earlier affili- ated with the University of Chicago. It is within the framework of educa- tion in a democracy that Dr. Jacobson speaks and presents the yearbook to us at this time. Dr. Jacobson. Mr. Jacobson: Mr. President, Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: The topic for this paper, "Education in a Democracy," is based on the 1948 Yearbook. It is my responsibility to prepare this paper and I accept the responsibility for what is in it. I think everything in it can be found in the 1948 Yearbook. The 1948 Yearbook recognizes that the public school system has done an excellent job. We recall with pride its unparalleled growth and develop- ment. We point with satisfaction to the success of its graduates. With justification we boast of the magnificent job performed in training workers for war production. We note with satisfaction the recent gains made in securing professional salaries for many teachers. With all of these achieve- ments we do not rest content — our question, What are the next things to do if we follow the dictates of democracy? But first let us list a few of the foundation stones of democracy — the American Scriptures we have called them in this yearbook — before indicat- ing our task ahead. Known to all of us these American Scriptures are not readily available in one place. This service the yearbook provides ". . . every child . . . regardless of race or color or situation, wherever he may live under the protection of the American flag [has the right] to grow up in a family with an adequate standard of living and the security of a stable income."1 "But," I quote from Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man, "such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks — and all it wants — is the liberty of appearing." In this paper are listed seven things to do and following each one is quoted one of the American Scriptures which indicates why we must im- prove our schools to meet fully the needs of democracy. 1. Provide adequate school facilities for young children. The most recent facts available show that less than one in ten of the nation's two- to five-year-old children can now attend school ; these opportunities, meager as they are, are found principally in urban areas. Only one in five of the nation's five-year-olds has access to kindergarten facilities. The research studies of the effect of attendance in kindergartens and nursery schools indicate that provision for young children is a first must in education. 1 White House Conference on Child Health ami Protection. Addresses and Abstracts oj Committee Reports. New York: Century Co., 1931. p. 48. 80 American Association of School Administrators Since 1940 there has been a very sharp increase in the birth rate. Never before have there been so many preschool children as there are today. In thousands of growing communities it is not uncommon to find twice as many children less than one year old as there are five-year-olds, and to find four times as many less than one year as there are ten-year-olds. The pro- vision of an adequate plant, and securing an up-to-date program for young children is the first thing to do. We estimate the cost of providing the neces- sary housing to be $1,250,000,000 annually for a decade. There is a desperate shortage, too, of elementary-school teachers who must be recruited by adequate salaries and attractive working conditions. The provision of decent housing and a modern program for the little children who will shortly flock into the public schools is mandatory if we follow our belief, stated in the American creed in this yearbook that "Jew, Bohunk, Nigger, Mick — all the dirty names we call each other — are to have equal oppor- tunities to become Americans." 2. Locate all exceptional children and provide facilities to serve their needs. Authoritative estimates indicate there are four million exceptional children in need of some kind of special educational opportunities or services. The total enrolled in special classes and schools in 1940 was 385,180. Less than 10 percent of the exceptional children are receiving the special services they need. The heartening thing about special education is the high per- centage of exceptional children who can be salvaged, many of them relatively quickly, if they are given special education adapted to their needs. The cost which once could have been considered high, $150,000,000 additional annually, cannot be considered unreasonable in these days of $40,000,- 000,000 national budgets and $200,000,000,000 national income. If we believe in democracy — that every child, regardless of race or color or con- dition, wherever he may live under the American flag, has the right to develop to the limit of his ability so long as he does not jeopardize the rights of others, we cannot longer neglect to furnish special education to the exceptional children of our nation. 3. Extend secondary-school facilities to all who are able and willing to profit from high-school attendance. According to the 1940 census, 21 per- cent of the fourteen- to seventeen-year-old boys and girls are not enrolled in any school. It is a serious threat to democracy that more than one in five of the "teen-age" boys and girls are not in school. If we are to retain our political liberty, if we are to maintain our integrity and independence as a leading world power, we must have an intelligent and discriminating population. We must know how to find answers to our problems more intelligently than merely listening to a magic voice over the radio. It will not do for our citizens to follow a demagog who promises everything to everyone. It is not an accident that dictators grow to power in those areas where schools are provided for most meagerly. A few brilliant students have graduated from the secondary schools and have gone on to college. Fewer still, so stupid they could not profit from school attendance, have been placed in protective custody in homes for the feeble-minded. Another small segment, usually due to unspeakable home General Sessions 81 conditions, have become delinquents, if not downright incorrigibles, and have been incarcerated in training schools or their equivalents. An even smaller number, consisting almost entirely of girls, have forsaken the class- room for marriage, usually of the type heralded by the shotgun rather than with bridal veil and orange blossoms. The basic reason, in the opinion of this Commission, why young people are not in high school is that they can- not afford to attend. A recent research study on a national scale indicates that the high school is not effectively free.- Tuition is free, but carfare is not. Lunches, school supplies, admission to games and the like cost "cash on the barrelhead." The total in 1940 on the average for more than 19,000 students was $90 for the year. Certainly in 1948 the cost may well be $150 in terms of the reduced purchasing power of the dollar. At the time the study was made two-thirds of the families in the United States had incomes of $2,000 or less and one-third had family incomes of $1,000 or less. For hundreds of thousands of families with such incomes and several children, (and the two closely linked together) attendance at a tuition-free public high school is prohibitive. The provision of opportunity for every able boy and girl who wishes to attend high school and who can profit from it is one of the next things to do in education, if we believe: "I would rather be torn to pieces than disown my brothers of the suppressed classes," (Mahatma Gandhi) which is listed as one of the American Scriptures, an ideal of democracy, or if we give more than lip-service to "We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights . . ." And in 1948 one of those rights is a chance to get a decent high-school education. 4. Make higher education available to those who can profit from it. Today there are enrolled in higher institutions slightly more than 2,338,000 young men and women — roughly 72 percent more than the 1,360,000 prewar total, due in large part to the "G.I. Bill of Rights" which enabled many of the 1,123,000 veterans who could not otherwise have attended col- lege to obtain the training which benefits both the individual and the nation. Reliable estimates indicate there will be 4,600,000 young men and women who can profit from college attendance by 1965. When the "G.I. Bill" runs out some suitable replacement must be found if we believe with Jefferson "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the minds of men." The Office of Scientific Research and Development phrased it thus: ". . . We think it important that circum- stances be such that there be no ceilings, other than ability itself, to intel- lectual ambition. ... By giving further opportunity to those who show themselves worthy of further opportunity. . . . This is the American way: a man works for what he gets."3 2Jacobson. Paul B. "The Cost of Attending High School." Bulletin of the Sational Association of Sefondary-School Principals 28: 3-28, 65; January 1044. "Bush. Yannevar Science the Endless Frontier. I" S. Office of Scientific Research and Development. Washington. D. C: Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, 1945. p. 141-4.' 82 American Association of School Administrators Closely connected with higher education but considered part of secondary education are the technical institutes and junior colleges which are pro- vided for less than one in five of those who are potential enrollees. Every- thing we have said about increased facilities for higher education and exten- sion of secondary education applies to the extension and development of technical institutions and junior colleges to meet the need of adolescents and adults. The development of our human resources to their potential is the de- velopment of the "Last Frontier." After the Civil War the Homestead Acts allowed the orderly development of the continent by giving to indi- viduals at practically no cost except perseverance and perspiration a quarter section of rich farmland which needed development. Many who hear me are the indirect recipients of that bounty. The parallel after the second world war is clear ; it is the development of our human resources. 5. Internal improvements are needed in public education. Over 40 per- cent of the men examined for military service were rejected, most of them for physical reasons. Such a state cannot be tolerated in a society which has as its foundation the Golden Rule. Please do not misunderstand me, the schools were not the cause of rejection for physical reasons; far from it. But the* schools have the youngsters; society can use the institution. Expansion of health programs with adequate medical survey and inspection and private treatment including nutrition instruction and feeding are indicated. Wise counselors and psychiatric service to prevent incipient psychoneurotics pay off in human happiness as well as in man-hours for production. Expansion of recreational facilities will tend to improve com- munity health. From the war training programs we have learned with finality what we knew less certainly before: Special teaching aids result in improved learning. Direct teaching of foreign languages by bilingual teachers is effective. Multi- sensory aids to learning — moving pictures, film strips, opaque projectures, wire recordings, school-made learning aids, radio broadcasting and record- ing, phonograph records and turntables — cannot longer be ignored ; but their full utilization depends on closer articulation of materials with teach- ing situations through cooperation and mutual advice between user and producer. Outdoor education, school journeys, camping experiences, and inservice training programs for teachers remain to be developed as next things to do in education. That better preservice teacher preparation is implied in all which preceded must be readily apparent if we accept the American Scripture given by Whitman: "I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon. . ." 6. During the past fifteen years a new phrase, work experience , has gained a permanent place in the literature of school administration. First popular- ized during the depression, although it has long been present in schools with the best vocational education programs, it reached full stature during the war years when "seventeen-year-old men and women" were eagerly sought under "4-4 programs" or other plans which articulated school with work- ing experiences. Learning to work by working is nothing particularly new; General Sessions 83 acceptance of this as a developmental task of young people, recognizing that the school must record it and articulate it with the school program, is new. The primary difference between work experience of children and work of adults in the community is that the most important element for young people is what they learn; with adults the primary consideration is production. Such a program requires coordinators and supervision on the job to see that learning and not exploitation results, preceded by a sound and greatly expanded guidance program. In a survey conducted in the spring of 1947, 54 percent of those schools replying indicated a work ex- perience program. Initiated as early as 1910, more than one-half were inaugurated since 1940. There are still doubting Thomases within the faculties and in the supporting communities. Here lies one of the next things to do in education if we are really prepared to put into action the scripture ". . . to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor . . . no matter what their race or the color of their skin." 7. Pay the bill. In the abstract sense, most Americans believe in good schools for all the children. When called upon to tax themselves for the support of good schools, however, that faith is not easily or consistently followed. With surprising regularity school expenditures have been kept at, or below, the amounts spent annually for tobacco products. This is not to imply that smoking is a national evil ; the comparison is rather clear, however, that the nation has not yet set its hand seriously to the task of financing an adequate school program. The kind and amount of education essential to the preservation of democracy simply cannot be obtained for "cigarette money." It is high time that this fact be boldly announced, and faced by the American people with candor and determination. School opportunities cannot safely be postponed until the federal government is ready to foot the bill for the increased cost. Superintendents and school boards in every school district are obligated to take stock of their respective programs, to begin where they are, and to move as rapidly toward the acceptable goal as it is possible to do so. Some communities may need to double their present budgets, others to treble them, or even to increase them fivefold or tenfold. Nationally we estimate the annual additional cost for the expanded program: a. For voung children $400,000,000 b. For exceptional children 150,000,000 c. For secondarv education 1,050,000,000 d. For adult education 450,000,000 e. For new services, activities, devices, and pro- cedures, and for needed salary increases 1,500,000,000 f. For housing and permanent equipment 1,250,000,000 g. For teacher education 200,000,000 $5,000,000,000 Added to the present expenditures of $3,000,000,000 the grand total is $8,000,000,000, a smaller percentage of today's national income than was spent in the depth of the depression. 84 American Association of School Administrators These are not idle pipe dreams about some Utopian school system. Instead, they are specific price tags of progress in education. The United States can continue — for awhile — to match her pennies for cigarettes or schools, and can survive a few more years with ten million illiterate adults, with several millions of children and youth who are not in school at all, and with mil- lions more in substandard schools so inferior and brief that they give no adequate preparation for modern living. Or we can demand and begin to pay for schools that will eradicate illiteracy, build good health and good citizenship, and open the doors of opportunity to all people. The choice is inevitable ; the consequences certain. THE ESSENCE OF DEMOCRACY Throughout this paper we have quoted some of the foundation stones of democracy — the American Scriptures to emphasize the next things to do in education. Let us summarize them here. One of the greatest Americans gave us, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right. . ." (Lincoln, Second Inaugural) and also from Lincoln, "that gov- ernment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" {Gettysburg Address). "Liberty requires opportunity to make a living — a living decent accord- ing to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for" (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speech of Acceptance, 1936) and thousands of our boys — graduates of the public school system — found democracy worth fighting for and dying for. Another statesman phrased it thus: "Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin." (Wendell L. Willkie, One World). "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:39). "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). The yearbook lists many more. In the writings of the founding fathers — in the measured words of our eminent jurists — in the joyous song of the poet — in the reasoned judgment of the historian we find the scriptures, the warp and the woof of the fabric which is democracy. Summed up it means ". . . to have faith in the dignity and worth of the individual man as an end in himself, to believe that it is better to be governed by persuasion than by coercion, ... to believe that in the long run all values are inseparable from the love of truth and the disinterested search for it, to believe that knowledge and the power it confers should be used to promote the welfare and happiness of all men rather than to serve the interests of those individuals and classes whom fortune and intelligence endow with temporary advantage." Restated more simply, the eminent historian Carl Becker says "The essence of (the demo- cratic faith) is belief in the capacity of man, as rational and humane Gen krai. Sessions ns creature, to achieve the good life by rational and humane means."1 This is the credo of democracy. This is the "American dream" — legacy and trust. To teach what man has hoped and striven for over the ages and across the boundaries of race, nation, class, climate, and custom — is the sacred task of the secular public school. It is in this spirit that the Commission has examined the school and indicated what improvements are warranted if it is to fulfil its purpose in a democracy. TEACHING THE DEMOCRATIC WAY Today the peace of the world is jeopardized by two diametrically con- trasting, conflicting ways of life; the welfare and happiness of the citizens of all nations depends on which one survives. Liberal capitalism as a means of attaining democracy in the United States and in some of the Western nations of the world is in direct ideological conflict with the totalitarian dictatorship in communistic Russia. In democratic nations the press is free, assemblage of persons and dissemination of opinions by speech, press, or through the air are guaranteed and are furnished, except in wartime, even to the point where they involve the most bitter criticism of individuals or the government. One may attend the church of his choice or refrain from attending, as he wishes. Capitalistic democracy has brought unbelievable opportunities for the individual, abundance for many, fabulous wealth to a few. It is capable of bringing undreamed abundance to all our citizens. Democracy believes in the dignity and worth of the individual with the state being used as a servant in achieving the welfare of the citizens. Communism in direct contrast asserts the importance of the state and denies concern for the individual whose happiness, welfare, or improvement has been and always will be sacrificed ruthlessly by the dictator class. He is the means to an end instead of an end in himself. It matters not whether totalitarianism is fascist or communistic; it denies the right of the indi- vidual to develop his potentialities and to improve his welfare through his own initiative. The state sets the plan. In the communistic state the school is the instrument of the central government, not of the citizens. The press is controlled and biased, radio is directed, the church is derided. Communism has provided subsistence and a dictated low level security; it shows no evidence of providing well for the common man. Between these two alterna- tives the nations of the world will choose. It is the responsibility of society to teach and to demonstrate that our way of life clearly is so much more desirable than communism is that tin- people of the world may choose wisely. This is now being undertaken by our federal government on an international scale. It is the responsibilitv of the school to indoctrinate our young people in the American way of life so that they know it by heart and live it instead of accepting it passively. This yearbook admits there are shortcomings in our society ; it proposes to teach young people about both the advantages and shortcomings so that * Barker. Carl L. Htm Liberties for Old. New Havrn: Vale University Trr^. I04l. p. 149-51 . 86 American Association of School Administrators through orderly processes these shortcomings can be remedied or changed in accordance with the will of the majority. But with its admitted short- comings— it is the best way of life for us who believe, "With malice toward none, with charity for all ; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right," and who know that democracy is "not only something to live by, but something to live for." EDUCATION— AN INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE OSCAR R. EWING, FEDERAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR, WASHINGTON, D. C. President Hunt: The United States Office of Education, ably served by Commissioner John W. Studebaker, functions in the administrative branch of our federal government under the Federal Security Agency. Heading that agency as administrator is the Honorable Oscar R. Ewing, who was appointed to this important post last fall by President Truman. A Hoosier by birth, Mr. Ewing was educated in the schools of Indiana, Indiana University, and at Harvard, where he obtained his law degree. After instructing in the field of law, Mr. Ewing engaged professionally in its active practice. Happily, governmental service has appealed to him and in various capacities has he served our country. In the short time in his present position, he has proved a friend of education. We greet him as such this morning and pledge our assistance to him in his important assign- ment. In speaking to us, Mr. Ewing has taken as his subject, "Education — An Investment in People." The Honorable Oscar Ewing. Mr. Ewing: President Hunt, Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am delighted to be here today, to meet you people and perhaps to be met, for the simple reason that my job as administrator of the Federal Security Agency necessitates that I come to know all of the various groups that are interested in our work. We have there not only the Office of Education but the Public Health Service, Social Security, Vocational Rehabilitation, and various other ac- tivities, but the voluntary groups that are interested in our work are a very important adjunct of our activities. The administrator is supposed to get to know you and certainly he wants you to know him. It reminds me a little of that delightful story that they tell about Man o' War, the greatest stallion of all time, which died recently on a farm down in Ken- tucky. Man o' War was so popular that often there were more people who visited him than visited some of our national parks. As a matter of fact, he was so popular that he even had visiting hours. You couldn't see him before nine o'clock in the morning and you couldn't see him after four o'clock in the afternoon. He had this old caretaker that just adored the old horse. He would water him, he would curry him, and he would give him hay and oats, and he would talk to him. He would ask the horse a question and then he would answer for the horse, and there was a wonderful camaraderie between them. Well, one afternoon, about four-thirty, a car drove up and two men got Gen bral Sessions N7 out and asked if they could see Man o' War. The old fellow said, "No, you can't see him. Visiting hours are over." They said they were sorry, they understood, hut they had come a long way. They looked around the harn a little bit and started away. Just as they started to walk away, one of the men said to the old fellow, "By the way, my friend here is Dr. Dionne." He started on and was just about to pet in the car when all of a sudden a Hash came through the old fellow and he rushed out and said, "Boss, boss, did you say that man's name was Dionne?" The man said, "Yes, that's right." The old fellow said, "Is he the father of them quintuplets? You come right back here! I want that hoss to see him!" [Laughter] Now, I have had a little experience in the field of pedagogy. After my first year in law school, I taught in the law school of the University of Iowa for a year. I know a little of your problems, first as a student, then as a teacher, then as a parent, and now as a grandparent. I really have an intense interest in what is going on in education, quite apart from my professional and public duties, and in this job that I have taken over. I came to it from the law, and these various fields of activity which come within my bailiwick and over which I have supervision are ones which I knew only somewhat remotely but they are all intensely interesting. But they are particularly ones in which I need a tremendous amount pf help. I have gone into this job with a very deep sense of humility because what I don't know about any of them would fill many books. Of course, as a lawyer, and a lawyer who has had a fair degree of trial experience, I know that you have to learn about each case you go into. You certainly have to learn more about it than the witnesses on the other side know, if you are going to cross-examine them intelligently. And so. in taking up these various things that have come within my responsibility, I have had to do that. education is one that is to me overwhelmingly important. I have come to know, in these six or seven months that I have been Federal Security Administrator, and I have found compelling evidence that you educators have gathered as to the great needs and to the even greater opportunities that American schools are confronted with. I have been digging into this evidence pretty deeply — not, to be sure, as a specialist, but as a citizen, a parent, and a public official. I have been deeply impressed with what you, who are responsible for education, are up against — with all that you have accomplished against great odds. But, as I look at education in the United States today, one problem overshadows everything else: The fact is that in spite of all our fanfare about free public education, almost 6 million boys and girls who ought to be in school today aren't there. Almost 20 percent of our school-age children and young people are being cheated of their birthright. This is a higher figure than you, or we, have been using. Heir is the simple, layman's arithmetic by which I arrived at it: As of October 1945, there were in this country almost 32 million children and youngsters five to nineteen years old. More than 3 million of these were eighteen and nineteen. The President's Com- 88 American Association of School Administrators mission on Higher Education says that half of these older young people would profit from education above high school. That makes a total of around 30^4 million youngsters between five and nineteen who should be served by the schools. But only 24^4 million of them are in fact enrolled. The difference is 6 million — 20 percent that education has, somehow, by-passed. Our objective must be to give all our children every bit of the schooling to which they are entitled. I know as well as you do that we cannot open the school door to these 6 million all at once. We should resolve that some day every one of our 30-odd million children and young people will be in school. We may not be able to reach this goal this year — or next year. But we can keep moving ahead — and you can be sure that I'll do all I can to help you speed that day. These facts — these figures — about our forgotten children do not sit very well upon our national pride. The more people realize that, the better. We need to talk about these facts in season and out. But talk alone is not enough. The whole country — the individual citizens and their government — must join with you educators in cracking the bottlenecks that are strangling education. These problems may be an old story to you. But I doubt if they are any the less challenging because you live with them day by day. Perhaps, because I am a little less immediately involved, I may tend to oversimplify the situation. But the plain fact is that when public school education in states or school districts is bad, the basic fault is almost always lack of money. There may be some few places where taxpayers could afford better schools and just don't want to pay for them. But on the whole, parents — and most taxpayers are parents — want to give their children the very best they can afford. States that are not giving their children a fair education are usually trying — but the money just isn't there. You educators tell us, for example, that Kentucky can spend only half as much on each child's schooling as Connecticut, and this in spite of the fact that the people of Kentucky actually devote close to a third more of their income to their schools. Mississippi has come in for a lot of attention because it spends less than any other state on educating each child. But Mississippi ranks among the ten top states in the percentage of its income that goes for education. Suppose Mississippi abolished every other government function — roads, law enforcement, sanitation, public health, welfare, and all the rest. Suppose it then adopted a model taxing system and devoted all the resulting tax revenues to education. It would still fall short of what it takes to finance an average public school program. However you look at it, the South has a tough row to hoe. The District of Columbia and seventeen Southern states have 40 percent of our school children and only 20 percent of the nation's tax income. But this is not wholly a regional problem. All over the country young people in farming regions are at a disadvantage. Is it any wonder they complete less school Grneral Sessions S9 grades than nonfarm youngsters when you realize that our farms produce 30 percent of our children — and less than 10 percent of our income? Southern farmers in 1040 had the task of educating 17 percent of all school children. Hut their income was less than 3 percent of the national total. Let's look at these economic considerations another way. You school administrators know something most laymen don't know — that economic differentials make the same kind of patchwork hetween communities as hetween states. A few miles of driving on hoth sides of the tracks will supply the evidence. In a Midwest area that I know pretty well, each city child gets $115 worth of education every year — while his neighbor in a nearby small town has to get along on $63. I doubt, somehow, that the cost of education is twice as high in the larger community. And I strongly suspect that the difference of a few miles leaves the small town children with a two to one handicap. Such handicaps, however, are never exclusively for home consumption — not in a nation where distance is no barrier and migration flows freely, from farm and small town to city, from state to state. Is there any ground for my impression that these differentials may some- times show up in even more subtle ways? Does it ever happen, for instance, that poor teachers somehow gravitate to poor neighborhoods? I've been advised not to ask this question. And I really hope it is pointless — that the answer is a resounding "no." But if there are any such skeletons in our closets, let's give them short shrift. In the words of a recent Presidential commission: "The children who need the best schools because their parents and neighborhoods can provide relatively little . . . frequently get the worst." There is no element of questioning or conjecture about the economic pressure which sends teen-age boys and girls out of school and into the labor market. Here, too, the end result is to distort the ideal of equal op- portunity. When war jobs tempted young people to go to work instead of to school, we laid it at the door of the manpower shortage and the com- paratively high wages that even youngsters could earn. For many, that was a real temptation. Today, "temptation" is probably the wrong word. As the cost of living goes up, work is no longer a matter of choice for boys and girls whose families need their earnings to help pay the grocery bill. Some people don't seem to realize that our "free" education really isn't quite so free as we say it is. You educators know that it costs money to go to a free public school. And I don't mean tax money this time — money for lunch, money for clothes, money for pencils and notebooks. These ma\ sound like pin money to some, but they can add up to something that look^ like luxury when family pocketbooks get lean. I saw some figures the other day that compared years <>t schooling with family rent. According to this evidence, only one child out of ten went bevond the eighth grade in families that could pay only $10 a month rent — while in families paying $^0 to $75, it was one out of three. (These rent figures, by the way, are for 1940, if they ^enn too low to believe.) 90 American Association of School Administrators Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not arguing that we should pamper our children. The generation that fought the war has proved for themselves and for their younger brothers that they can carry their full share of re- sponsibility. And the veterans and veterans' wives who are combining college and baby raising on GI allowances have proved that they can still stretch a dollar in the best American tradition. What I do protest — what does come down to economic discrimination — is facing youngsters with the bitter choice between educational malnutrition and literal, physical mal- nutrition. But equality of opportunity is not all a matter of dollars and cents. You school people know better than any of us how racial discrimination aggra- vates economic handicaps — how it places a double burden on the educational system. Two sets of schools, two sets of teachers! How costly this is! How wasteful ! Discrimination has had a lot of attention lately. I think it needs a lot of attention. I feel deeply about it — and so do you. Most people in this country want to do something about it. We cannot be complacent while large numbers of Americans do not receive their birthright. You cannot do your full job as educators until all of us as citizens learn — and practice — the ABC's of democracy. Negroes are our biggest minority group. But there are the Mexicans, the Nisei, and all the others. Let's remember them, too. America is great — partly because we are a melting pot of many minorities, each of whom has contributed richly to our common heritage. Since Negroes make up 95 percent of our nonwhite population, let's take a quick look at education from their point of view. In 1940, more than 90 percent of our native whites completed at least five years of grade school. Less than 60 percent of the Negroes had even this much education. Almost 30 percent of the whites finished high school — but only 7 percent of the Negroes. We cannot excuse this record by saying the Negro has less capacity for education. The President's Commission on Higher Education firmly points out that this just isn't so. Scientific studies in anthropology and physiology debunk any such assumption. Aggravating all these problems are the shortages — of buildings, of equip- ment, of teachers. Studies of the Federal Security Agency indicate that present plant needs for elementary and secondary schools alone total almost 7^2 billion dollars. And this takes no account of the 6 million children who ought to be, but are not now, attending school. If we are to plan for them, too, our total plant needs would run to about 9^ billion dollars. Of course, I realize that a good building doesn't of itself make a good school. Without good teachers, the best plant in the world is of almost no value. And everyone knows from personal experience that a good teacher can create true education even in the most meager setting. Such teachers have enriched our lives and those of our children. But do we have enough teachers? Do we have the right kind of teachers? Gknerm. Sissioms 9| Again the answer is in large part money. I am told that at least 50,000 children are actually attending schools, but are {jetting; no schooling whatsoever. Why? Because their school hoards cannot gel any kind of teachers for them at the miserable salaries they can offer. Probably another million children who attend irregularly, in spite of state laws, are not brought hack into the schools. Why? Because the schools have neither room nor teachers for them. Specialists inform me that in at least one classroom out of eight, "educa- tion," so-called, is in the hands of unqualified men and women. More than 100,000 teachers do not meet standards which the states themselves have established. Why? Because for years teaching has heen a forgotten profession, in terms both of prestige and of financial reward. No fact about education seems to me more disturbing. It was a real shock to me to learn that from 1941 to 1°4S more than one-third of a million qualified teachers, over and above the normal turnover, left their schools for military service or better paying jobs. For the most part, they have not gone back. Why should they? "Who wouldn't stay in the green pastures of better- paving jobs? I have yet to see a teacher breaking into the upper income brackets. If teachers' salaries ever do make front-page headlines, it's only because the pay is so low. In the rich years from 1941 to 1945, weren't around 60 percent of our teachers getting less than $2000 — and 16 percent, less than $1200? I share your satisfaction that teachers' salaries have gone up — as much, I am sure, as hard-pressed communities can generally afford. But the picture is still black. I wonder, for example, how our school staffs will keep up wTith the birth rate. In the last five years, 13 million babies have been born. Before too long, these babies will be heading for school. How many teachers are heading in the same direction? Just to take one example, I understand that Illinois will need six or seven thousand more elementary teachers in the next five years — hut only about 100 ele- mentary teachers were graduated in the state last year. Facts like these cast disturbing shadows across our American ideal of education for all. But it is not an ideal we can or will relinquish. For myself, the intensive briefing of the last six months has only strengthened my educational credo. Here it is: I believe that the teaching profession should he made so attractive — not merely in financial rewards but also in status, dignity, and honor — that our most able, brilliant, and wise citizens would compete for teaching positions. A teaching appointment ought to become one of the loftiest goals to which ambition can aspire. [Applause | I believe we must give every child the education for which he is qualified. This means schooling for practically all our children up to eighteen. It means at least two additional years for half the eighteen- and nineteen- year-olds. According to the Commission on Higher Fducation, it also means 92 American Association of School Administrators that a third of our population has the further ability to complete advanced liberal arts or professional training. Educating all our children is no fantastic dream. It is the very stuff of democracy. It is an essential of individual and national stability. But no one could possibly think it is easy. All these facts, it seems to me, argue for federal aid. How else can we begin to translate our objectives into reality? For almost twenty years, nonpartisan commissions of distinguished edu- cators and civic leaders, serving in succession under three different Presi- dents, have come up — patiently and persistently — with this same con- clusion. Fourteen major bills for federal aid were introduced into the House of Representatives last year alone. President Truman's Budget Message to the Congress includes $300,000,000 for educational aid. So here is the last point in my credo: With the President, I believe federal aid is essential. It should help to make equality of education a reality all over the country — by overwhelming economic, racial, and regional dis- crimination ; by contributing to community colleges ; by establishing college and graduate scholarships, as proposed by the President's Commission. I needn't discuss these questions of ways and means with you. I am confident that you who are experienced in this field can work out technical points — just as I am confident we can find some answer to differences of opinion on policy issues, including the admittedly difficult problem of federal aid to nonpublic schools. It is simply unthinkable that the people of this country cannot move forward together on a program that will resolve these differences in the interests of children. Surely they come first. The situation we are now facing is no overnight crisis. It has been developing for years — with war and postwar pressures serving only to push it closer to catastrophe. You have seen it coming and you have patched and prodded. If you had not made fighting advances against inertia and indif- ference, we would be still further from the goal than we now are. Yet any of us who are parents know that youth has no time for tactics of delay. Children grow up — with or without benefit of education. The boy whom the schools failed to serve twenty years ago has children of his own looking to the schools today. "Like father, like son" can spell despair if no door to opportunity opens. Twenty years from now — ten years — five years — I hope we will be telling a different story. I have a couple of grandchildren coming along. I shall be measuring our success for all our children in the human and per- sonal terms of my concern for these grandchildren. Perhaps this is one of the times when patience ceases to be a virtue. The Congress is alerted. You school administrators and teachers are set to go. Parents and public spirited citizens are ready to give their full support. Children and young people can't wait. Action — the first steps toward a new birth of freedom — must come soon. Now, in this work that we have to do, I want to talk to you about one other thing, and that is this: You may know that there is a bill pending General Sessions 93 that has been introduced in Congress, in the Senate by Senator Taft and Senator Fulbright, to make the Federal Security Agency a department with a Cabinet member as its head. I am very much interested in getting that bill passed, not because it means anything to me personally — naturally, I would be gratified if the President should appoint me but that is not the point. In my few months, I have come to know how important is the difference between being in and out of the Cabinet, and I say again it is not a matter of my personal feelings. As a matter of fact, place and position to me seem completely unimportant. The only time it really was quite important to me was when I was a notary public. I often felt that office was not paid the dignity to which it was entitled. [Laughter] But in so many ways, I find what I am trying to do for education, for public health, for social security, for vocational rehabilitation, is definitely handicapped by the fact that we do not have departmental status. I want to give you one or two examples. Last fall, the President set aside a week to be known as "Employ the Handicapped Week." He asked that the Labor Department, the Veterans Administration, and the Social Security Administration head up that work. In the Federal Security Administration, as a matter of fact, I suppose in our vocational rehabilitation work, 80 or 90 percent of the whole ac- tivity within that field is in our jurisdiction. The managers of that program thought it would be a fine idea to have a radio broadcast, and one of the radio companies offered a half hour's time on a coast-to-coast hookup. They thought it would be very nice for Secretary Schwellenbach and General Bradley and me to participate in that program and tell the people of this country about the work that was being done for the physically handicapped. Well, the radio company said that they would be delighted to have Sec- retary Schwellenbach but that there was nothing doing for General Bradley or Ewing. They said that the Crosley radio listener audience ratings showed that the radio listener interest came first for the President, second for members of the Supreme Court, third for members of the Cabinet, and heads of independent agencies were so low down that they didn't even have a rating for them. There we were — General Bradley, quite as much as myself — deprived of an opportunity to tell the American people some of the great work that is being done in the agencies under our direction. A second example — and this does not sound anything like as important to tell as it really is. I remember talking to the President one time about something that I was very anxious to have done. He agreed that it should be done. He said, "Please talk to Clark Clifford and John Steelman about it." I did. They were both enthusiastic about it, and something was going to be done. I didn't hear about it for a week and I went back. Well, they were sorry but they had been so darned busy on food prices or something else — I forget just what it was — that they had not had the time. Now, if the head of that agency had been in the Cabinet, if he had been to a Cabinet meeting on Friday, if he had been to a Cabinet luncheon on Monday, he would have had a chance to prod these people to do something. There is still another example which I would like to mention, and that 94 American Association of School Administrators is, when they were setting up the Security Resources Board. That was a board that was to make an inventory of our security resources, what they were, where they were, and how they could be made available in time of emergency. Well, they decided to make that a board consisting of Cabinet members. They were going to have the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of Labor. I think that is all. And yet, as' a matter of fact, human resources come within the Federal Security Agency. During the war, we trained thirteen and a half million industrial workers, fully as much as the army and navy had anything to do with. We were the ones that broke the bottleneck that made planes and ships and tanks and guns available. And yet, we are not to be in on the planning, all because we do not have Cabinet status. Now, if you people are interested in education, you certainly should get behind the proposition to put the federal official who has responsibility for education in a place in the government where he can exert the most possible influence, and that is in the Cabinet. [Applause] I know you have some program that provides for setting up a separate independent agency on education, and I can say perfectly truthfully that, within the foreseeable future, there is not a shadow of a chance of any such thing being enacted. This other bill is the one thing that can be done immediately, and if all of you people get behind it, it can be done and it will be done. I feel very strongly about what I want to do — I won't be in this job very long, but these great causes will be there long after you and I and all of us are gone. While I am there, I want your help, I want your advice, I want your encouragement. But I want you to help so that such strength and ability as I have can count for the most, and I want that to be true of every successor of mine. There is so much at stake here — the health, the happiness, the welfare of practically every man, woman, and child in the United States — and the person who is in the federal government who has that direct responsibility should be able to sit in the highest council. Now, I know the educational road is a hard one. I know we will never get to the end of it, because as we move forward, our goals will advance, too. But I want your help, and as I go along with you on this educational road, on this road to better things, when I falter or fall down, I want your help. I promise you that I will be there helping you just as much as I know how, because neither you nor I have any right to relax for one second until the last one of those thirty and a half million children have the best education that America can give them. AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION AND BYLAWS CLAUDE L. KULP, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, ITHACA, NEW YORK; MEMBER, PLANNING COMMITTEE, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS President Hunt: During the very able leadership that Henry Hill gave last year as president of our Association, there was appointed a ( il.MK AI. SlSSION'S 95 Planning Committee. We considered the recommendations, in part, of that Planning Committee at last year's convention here in Atlantic City. Because of the nature of the report, however, there were certain phases of it that could not be considered because of the conditions pertaining to the adoption of changes in our Constitution and Bylaws. The work of the Planning Committee has continued to go forward under the Leadership of Superin- tendent Goslin of Minneapolis. Unfortunately, -Mr. Goslin has been de- Layed in reaching the convention. There are implications of the Committee's work, however, that need to be brought to the attention of the convention at this time, and, very graciously and very willingly, Superintendent Claude 1.. Kulp of Ithaca, New York, a member of the Committee, has agreed to address the convention that he may call our attention in behalf of the Planning Committee and Chairman Goslin to the matter of the con- stitutional amendments that will receive consideration during these ses- sions here this year. We recognize for that purpose Superintendent Claude Kulp. Mr. Kulp: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Planning Committee, and Ladies and Gentlemen : One year ago, at our annual convention in Atlantic City, Superintendent Willard Goslin of Minneapolis, Chairman of the Planning Committee of the American Association of School Administrators, presented the detailed recommendations of his committee. The report in- cluded two amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws of our organization. The Constitution provides that revisions may be made only by presenta- tion of the proposed amendment at one annual meeting, to be acted upon at the annual meeting a year later. The amendments read last year are therefore presented for your consideration at this time. You will be given an opportunity to vote on these amendments tomorrow, Wednesday, from 11:00 a.m. to6:00 p.m. Before reading the amendments which have been suggested by the Plan- ning Committee, it may be well to review very briefly the reasons which prompted your Committee to draft them, and this I shall do largely in the words of Mr. Goslin when he gave his report last year. Dues. The first amendment concerns the financial status of our Asso- ciation. The Planning Committee, after study, has come to the conclusion that this organization has reached the top and final limit of the exploitation of its financial resources; in other words, we are now doing all that we can do for education and for the members of this Association with the limited income available. Therefore, if we envision 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 or- ganization. We tried to analyze a number of sources to which we might turn, in- cluding a shakedown of each member attending the annual meeting in the form of a two-dollar registration fee, which might have produced an addi- tional twenty to thirty thousand dollars. But we learned that that would be impossible. The Committee thought of other possibilities but discarded most of them as impracticable. 96 American Association of School Administrators The specific proposal wfcich the Planning Committee made last year to its Chairman with reference to finances was a proposed amendment to the Bylaws of the Association which will increase the dues of this Association from five dollars to ten dollars. The proposed amendment is now read for the second time, after an interval of one year, in accordance with the Bylaws. Specifically, we would amend Article III of the Bylaws of the American Association of School Administrators, dealing with dues, by substituting "ten dollars" for "five dollars," so that Article III would read as follows: The dues of this Association shall be ten dollars per year for both active and associate members, and shall be paid annually to the Executive Secretary. On Wednesday, you will have an opportunity to cast your ballot on this amendment. Before reaching a decision, we need to remind ourselves that if our organization is to keep pace with its increasing demands for services, it will take more money. If you compare the dues which we pay as members of the educational profession with the dues which are paid by other people, professional and otherwise, our present dues of five dollars seem very, very low. Most of us pay more to our service clubs than we do to this organization. Our Planning Committee feels that its proposal to increase dues to only ten dollars is very conservative. Annual Meeting. The second amendment which the Planning Com- mittee proposes, as read by Mr. Goslin at our 1947 meeting, concerns the time of the annual meeting and the character of the meeting, namely, whether we shall always meet in one great annual session or whether we may occasionally hold regional meetings of the type established during the war. The Committee has recommended that regional meetings shall be held at least once in three years, and you may recall that last year, ballots over- whelmingly in favor of this plan were cast, but that only served as an endorsement of the recommendation. To make that possible, Article VII of the Constitution, dealing with the annual meeting, would be revised by striking out the words, "on the fourth Sunday in February, and the four succeeding days," and substi- tuting, "at such time and place or places as shall be determined by the Executive Committee of the Association," so that Article VII of the Con- stitution would read as follows: The annual meeting of this Association shall be held at such time and place or places as shall be determined by the Executive Committee of the Association. I think that our meaning and intention must be clear. The present Con- stitution and Bylaws call for an annual meeting of this organization on the fourth Sunday in February and the four succeeding days. That has not been possible for some time until this year, and we thought that we would clear the Constitution so that we could live by it during changing and unforeseen conditions. The idea of giving the Executive Committee the authority to hold the General Sessions 97 annual meeting as a single meeting or as a series of regional 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. If you are interested in our considered judgment, we believe that the increase of both the human and financial resources of this organization i> a necessity ill order that we may meet our responsibility to American educa- tion. "We cannot increase the human resources without increasing the financial resources," so said Mr. Goslin in his report last year. So much for the two amendments on which we shall vote tomorrow. Life Membership. The Planning Committee wishes to propose another amendment for adoption next year, namely, that the life membership fee shall be raised from one hundred dollars to two hundred dollars. To make this change, it will be necessary to amend Article III, Section 5, of the Constitution by changing "one hundred dollars" to "two hundred dollars." With the approval of the Executive Committee, the proposed amendment is read now, and in accordance with the Constitution will be read at our next annual meeting in 1949, at which time it will be voted upon. The amended Article III, Section 5, will read as follows: All members of the National Education Association who are eligible to active membership in the American .Association of School Administrators shall become life members of the Association upon the payment of a mem- bership fee of $200, which may be made in ten equal annual payments, or upon securing a contribution of $250 to .the Permanent Educational Research Fund, which may be paid in five equal annual instalments. All such contributions and life membership fees shall become a part of the Permanent Educational Research land. Life members shall be exempt from the payment of all other membership fees in the American Association of School Administrators, and shall have all the rights and privileges of active members. It has been a privilege to present this brief report on amendments for Chairman Goslin and the Planning Committee of our Association. I think the Planning Committee would wish me to say this morning that we have greatlv enjoyed the privilege of working with Willard Goslin, who has provided unusually fine and stimulating and vigorous leadership. That statement has no political implications, inasmuch as Mr. Goslin, you know, i> to be your next president. Thank you! SIXTH GENERAL SESSION Tuesday Evening, February 24, 1948 BUILDING INTERNATIONAL GOODWILL THROUGH TEACHER EXCHANGE EVA CARMICHAEL, BRITISH EXCHANGE TEACHER, CITY SCHOOLS, ANDERSON, SOUTH CAROLINA /T^hairman Simpson [Alfred D. Simpson, Associate Professor of Edu- ^— ' cation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Second Vice- president, American Association of School Administrators] : Today, our Executive Committee of this Association met most profitably and, I might say, most enjoyably with the Executive Committee of the Department of Classroom Teachers of the National Education Association. Tonight, we are all meeting with a distinguished classroom teacher of our great neighbor, England. Miss Eva Carmichael, who will speak to us this evening, is a British exchange teacher of Anderson, South Carolina. Miss Carmichael is from Bridlington, Yorkshire, England. Miss Carmichael won't mind, I am sure, if I say this. I asked her what sort of a place Bridlington was, since I am a country boy who doesn't get around much, and Miss Carmichael said, "Well, Bridlington is a miniature Atlantic City," so I am sure she is g6ing to be at home with us and you are going to be at home with her. In Anderson, South Carolina, Miss Carmichael works with primary children. Tonight, Miss Carmichael will address us on the subject, "Build- ing International Goodwill through Teacher Exchange." We welcome Miss Carmichael most cordially and await with keen anticipation her mes- sage. Miss Eva Carmichael. Miss Carmichael: The privilege of attending this conference in the capacity of a practicing teacher from a foreign land is a signal honor conferred, through me, upon the British teachers in America this year. On behalf of my colleagues I thank you. I am grateful for this unique opportunity to view another facet of American education and thus enrich my store of experiences the better to interpret America to my people when I return to England. I am a teacher neither of secondary-school students nor of junior-school pupils but of infants. In anticipation the task of speaking to this audience assumed gigantic proportions. In realization the very fact that the assembled administrators of American education are willing to listen to a foreign teacher is a significant gesture of goodwill. A teacher, by the very nature of her work, is a world citizen and as such it behooves her to learn about her world, how to live with other people and to appreciate their good points. If we are going to educate children we must first educate ourselves more effectively than hitherto. [98] General Sessions 99 What a responsibility lies in our hands — that somewhere in our schools at this moment are the leaders of our countries who may guide this tattered world to peace and security. How vitally necessary for us to implant firmly the idea of the brotherhood of man. 1 quote that unknown author — O, may I feel that I have failed unless I teach each child to seek in every race The common traits of brotherhood ; to feel Within his breast the heartbeats of the world. If you are hungry and I do not know you, that is impersonal and I cannot feel your desperate need, but if you are hungry and I do know you then I would gladly share with you my last crust — no sacrifice would be too great. By sacrifice we learn humility and through humility we become wise. To others much more wise than I may be left the task to solve the prob- lem of creating international harmony. Far-seeing educators realize the tremendous challenge to the character of our nations to widen the horizon of good citizenship. As a teacher I have come to America to widen my horizon. I propose to take you along the road I have traveled since I applied for an exchange to the United States of America. Along that road I have discovered sign- posts which, if followed by us all, would inevitably lead to that distant goal — the true comradeship between the nations of the world. There is a wonderful opportunity offered by the scheme for the interchange of teachers for us to make these signposts clear and legible. England pioneered in the exchange of teachers. It was in 1920 that the idea was born that a teacher could improve her teaching by having first- hand knowledge of another country but it was not until 1924 that the first exchange actually took place. Between 1924 and 1939 one hundred and thirty-four teachers exchanged between Great Britain and the United States of America. In 1939, owing to the exigencies of war, the scheme was suspended only to be revived with renewed vigor last year when seventy-four teachers from each country crossed the Atlantic. The British Committee for Interchange of Teachers is made up of a highly expert professional committee, government departments, ami a voluntary organization for interchange of teachers. The English-Speaking Union is the background of our interchange scheme. Since its formation in 1918 it has laid great stress on the value and importance of personal contacts between individuals as a means of furthering knowledge and understanding. I have come to know Berkeley Square, not by the nightingale's song but as the headquarters of our committee in Dartmouth House, the home of the English-Speaking Union. After my application had been accepted and I had satisfied requirements as to character, health, and ability, quantities of correspondence came from that address as every little detail was worked out by the tireless committee. Our transfer from one classroom to another thousands of miles away pro- ceeded as if on oiled wheels as tar as we, individually, were concerned. 1U0 American Association of School Administrators On July 25 last year when we were almost ready to start out on our journey an invitation came to attend a reception at the English-Speaking Union. There the British teachers met and were wished Godspeed by the minister of education in their mission as ambassadors of goodwill. There was a huge map on display showing the thirty-one states to which the one hundred and twenty-five British teachers would journey to form bonds of friendship that would link Great Britain to Texas, Nebraska, New York, California, Oregon, and points North, South, East, and West. On August 1 1 we left London feeling like adventurers. Our chairman, Miss Edith Ford, traveled to Southampton with us and she was the last person we saw as we sailed away from England. She stood on the end of the pier waving a scarf of red, white, and blue. We were on board the "Marine Jumper," a troop ship, loaned by the American Marine Commission for cultural and educational purposes. What we lacked in amenities was made up in company. Over nine hundred passengers representing seventeen different nations were on board. For eight days we lived an experiment in international living. We ate together and sang together. Discussions took place all over the ship from the gun turrets to the long queue for dinner in the cafeteria. You should have seen the Britishers' eyes the first time we saw the stacks of sliced white bread looking like mounds of cotton wool and the quantities of fried steaks ! One of the most impressive church services I have ever attended was held on the sundeck under the auspices of several denominations and conducted by members of different nations. Dr. Paul Smith, the chairman of the American Interchange Committee, elected to travel with us and how grateful we were for his humorous yet thorough orientation program. We felt that we knew a little about the strange ways of America before we had to set foot on her shores. All the way the sea was calm. That little third-grade boy need not have worried as he did. When they were having their lesson on the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers, he was heard to moan, "Poor Miss Carmichael. Cross- ing that dangerous water." As we neared the American coast we passed our sister ship, the "Marine Tiger" taking to England the one hundred and twenty-five American teachers bent on the same friendly mission to our country. We arrived in New York and had our first view of the skyscrapers, bright lights, and the innumerable huge automobiles, not to mention the shops displaying their tempting wares all free of points and coupons. We learned that New York is also a city of learning. We were privileged to stay at Columbia University while we were entertained by our American hosts — a very heart-warming welcome to a new world. In London our fellow American teachers were being greeted in a similar fashion and in a few days had absorbed much of British atmosphere through a rapid tour of London. After three days we set out on our own, the high-school teachers, the elementary-school teachers, the husbands and wives, to the homes left ready (iiMR.vi. Skssions Id I by American colleagues, the Scotsman, who, I hope, kept tight hold of his kilt, which he is going to wear when he goes hitch-hiking around America as soon as holidays begin, and the Londoner, who thought it might have been a good idea if he had packed a suit of pearlies (the traditional button- covered velvet suit of London costermongers) for the same reason. I proceeded south to Washington and spent two days — an all too short stay — in your beautiful capital. I met an American girl at the foot of Washington's Monument. She was showing her young brother the historical landmarks of his capital city. It was intensely interesting to sec those monuments through the eyes of young America. As the visitor, 1 was treated to my first Coca Cola. My deepest impression was gained that night when we were taken by a member of the British Embassy- office to see Lincoln's Memorial. We climbed the steps like pilgrims. That monument, it seemed to me, was integrity personified. Integrity, one of the signposts to a better world. I came down those steps full of the depth of our mission in your country ami wished that many more of my fellow teachers could have the same wonderful opportunity. My first sight of the South was from the train as I put up the blind in the sleeping berth and saw a bank of bright red soil, a green pine tree, and that blue, blue sky. My superintendent and his wife met me at the station. I was welcomed with open arms. We drove thirty miles to my American home town. As we entered I saw a curb market with peaches for sale and involuntarily cried out : "Oh, they sell peaches in tubs over here." The next thing I knew Mr. Hawthorne had stopped the car, got out, and returned with a hag full of the biggest peaches I had ever seen. So I had my initiation into my new mode of life. My American colleague in England was met, not with peaches, but with true Yorkshire hospitality. My headmistress took her to her British home where they were all invited in to partake of an English high tea. Back to the Sunny South. Have you ever been in that neighborhood '. You ought to visit down there sometime. The neighbors might ask you, as they did me, to a watermelon supper. We gathered in the kitchen, covered the table with paper, and the host dragged out of the refrigerator an enormous bomb of a watermelon. With a carving knife he cut it into six enormous pieces. We were each given a piece and within a few minutes nothing was left but rubble, as if the bomb had burst. 1 did not like watermelon nearly as well as I bad at (list decided. In England we arc used to friendly postmen. How much we find that our people are alike on the highways and Invvavs. One particularly wet autumn day when I had been bemoaning the fact that I had left my macintosh in England the postman arrived with the letters and this bright remark: "NawstJ spot of weather we're bavin'!" and I iiist bad to reply, "\ assuh ; it sho' enough is!" Mv first dav at school I found 1 had not been assigned to one of the 102 American Association of School Administrators most modern schools and realized more fully than before that in America "all the streets are not paved with gold." As the weather grew colder I thought many times of the little village school in Yorkshire where I taught during the early years of the war — of those solid stone walls built a century ago; 1847 carved over the door, walls so thick that Hitler's bombs could not shake them but how the North- east wind could blow through the front door and out of the back! There was the fireplace I could not remember to keep fueled just as in the middle of a lesson with my tiny Americans I would look back to see my round American stove looking as black as thunder. I had forgotten to put on some more coal. The children were so much like our children, eager to learn and full of wonder on their first day at school. When I had dismissed my little ones I found several pairs of eyes looking in at the door. When I said, "Good- morning, is there anything I can do for you?" I just heard the word "Hey" and the eyes disappeared. Later I learned that those bigger children were amazed that the English teacher looked like other people and that they could understand what she said. How interested American children were in the Royal Wedding. I was showing some English money to a fifth-grade class. Someone asked "Who is that man on this silver coin?" I said, "King George VI." No response. Then I added "Princess Elizabeth's father." "What!" they shouted, "The Princess' father? Let me see that man!" In another class I was asked to "Speak some English, please." The parents are interested. We visited the home of each child during the first six weeks. I found that American homes, perhaps differently ar- ranged and differently built, still house people who yearn for much the same things in life as do British parents raising a family to the best of their ability. How well I got to know a group of teachers in a university extension course in music in which I enrolled as a student. It was held in the history room of the high school. I was interested to note how international relation- ships were being fostered in that classroom through the use of visual aids and discussions. At the time of the Royal Wedding the blackboard was filled with British references and I made particular note of the outlines entitled "Duties of a King," and "What a Future Queen Must Know." I do my best to interpret my country to parent-teacher associations, Lions Clubs, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian groups, and every sort of club and organization. When one mother at a PTA meeting in a tiny country schoolhouse said to me, "You are the first British person I have ever met," I felt that my visit there had been amply worthwhile. I'll not forget the high-school boy who came to take me to his high-school club meeting in his jalopy — a true member of that particular breed of car. We sailed down to the club meeting with accompanying groans, creaks, and grunts. On the way back jalopy refused to budge when a traffic light turned to green. Just as British teacher was about to get out and push we General Sessions 103 started up again and limped into a filling station. I expected John to ask for a gallon of gasoline but no. He spoke to the man who fetched a can of water, poured it into the radiator, and we simply purred all the way home. Would that we had that secret in England now that petrol is no more ! On Thanksgiving day my American colleague in England had an after- noon tea, decorated the table with American flags, served canned turkey, and entertained her guests with the story of the first Thanksgiving. I had the privilege of celebrating this holiday in a truly American fashion by going to church in the morning, eating an enormous dinner in the con- genial company of five children and seven adults, two of whom were students from Brazil. We were an international gathering. In the after- noon we attended the college football game and ate peanuts. I had previously seen my first football game between two high-school teams. I could not concentrate on separating the tangled contestants for looking at the new band uniforms, the cheer leaders, and the drum majorettes. Suddenly a firecracker exploded behind me — and I was back in England again, fire-watching at the school. During the war we did fire-watch duty at the schools — two women and one man each night. The gentleman on duty with us spent a good bit of time the long night watch proofreading his manuscripts as he is an author as well as a teacher. I remembered vividly the night we dashed out on guard at the sound of the siren and ducked flat on our faces as incendiaries began to rain down and the noise of exploding bombs burst in our ears. We were praying fervently that nothing would come our way. After an hour or so of devilish activity the night quieted down and we returned to our little staff room to stir up the fire and settle down once more — the author to his book. A book which later was published under the title of American England by H. L. Gee, full of facts concerning both our coun- tries compiled under such trying circumstances, proof that even in great danger there were people deeply concerned that a mutual understanding should develop between our countries. May I quote from the book — "We speak the same language, we glory in a common heritage, a love of freedom that goes back one thousand years. Mistakes of yesterday are due not to a vindictive spirit but to ignorance of each other." I have dwelt on my own impressions at length but I feel that they arc typical of what is happening wherever teachers are on exchange. From my colleagues and from students attending schools and universities on both sides of the Atlantic, whom I have contacted, come such impressions and opinions as — There was the American student we met in Switzerland a year ago at Christmas. In a cafe we heard an unmistakable American voice ask the waitress for tea. We asked in surprise how that could be. The young man told us that he was a student in an English public school for a year. He had become used to tea and he liked it. In his school they lived a Spartan life but he was thriving on it. 104 American Association of School Administrators It is international tolerance we are striving for and not merely Anglo- American unity. No one country has a monopoly on truth. We must be honest with each other. So much could be done to compile textbooks which could be used to foster international goodwill. One of our teachers was horrified that no one had heard of Bradford as the world center of the wool trade yet how many of us had heard of Akron as the world center of the rubber trade? We really must start teaching the truth about plain facts, historical, scientific, and economic. Mutual ignorance is a great obstacle. Somewhere by exchange of idea and friendly relation and understanding will come the education of tomorrow. It is the common people of one country who must learn to understand the common people of another country. "You cannot love the children without loving the country." The teacher who said that to me was on exchange in England last year. I met her for the first time on a bus going to the post office with a huge parcel to mail to England. She is continuing her contact with Great Britain. "We who were there last year look upon America as a second home and resent unfavorable criticisms of it — we jump to its defense if verbally at- tacked." So says an English exchange teacher. It helps to lose our own nationality for a time and learn the geography and history of our adopted country. We must be able to analyze and interpret. The children can gain from friendships formed through correspondence and by holidaying abroad but they cannot point the way to international understanding as teachers trained in analysis and interpretation can. We teachers must mobilize ourselves in this cause. It is important that we should not be smug and self-satisfied with our own country. We have the chance to show how well we can adapt our- selves to the ways of other people. What does it matter if we call a rubber an eraser, a shade a blind? I've found my American hosts convulsed with laughter at sayings of mine and I've laughed, too, when they offer "to carry me home" or to "crack the window." These are unimportant dif- ferences which in themselves "promote a camaraderie which makes fun of our common faults and is thus likely to be tolerant toward those faults and to be stirred by whatever good qualities they hide." How well the teachers on both sides can adapt themselves to the new terminology and what an example that is of goodwill. Teachers in high schools particularly found that students were having difficulty enough to cope with new subjects and new teachers without having to learn a new vocabulary so the teachers switched over to the methods and terminology of their adopted country — a procedure generally appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic. As I have had an opportunity to practice and observe I am firmly con- vinced that international goodwill must come from within the nations. ( ri m:r \i. Sessions 105 It is the common people who, by following those signposts — integrity, honesty, truth, unselfishness, adaptability, understanding, and friendliness, the keeping of the Golden Rule, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" — will make a better world. We, the teachers, by our associations with children and parents are ad- mirably fitted to lead the way. In conclusion 1 would like to quote for you a man whose heritage is both British and American, who stood foursquare with his face to the enemy and kept our courage high in the dark days of war — Winston Churchill, who said : Long live also the forward march of the common people in all the lands towards their just and true inheritance and towards the broader and fuller age. INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN GUESTS Chairman Simpson: I am now going to give you a great treat and introduce to you the educational representatives of other nations who are with us on the platform this evening. As I read the names of these repre- sentatives, I should like them to stand to receive our acclaim and to remain standing until I signal them to be seated. This is not an authoritarian concept but a democratic one. Honored guests, I should like you to stand as I read your names so that those in front may know just who you are. That will give this great audience a chance to show its deep and sincere appreciation for your being here. (Chairman Simpson then introduced Dr. Jose Rotman and Seiiora Rotman, representing Argentina; Dr. C. C. Goldring, Canada; Dr. P. C. Tang, China; Mr. Miguel A. Herrera and Seriora Herrera, Dominican Republic; Dr. Abbas Ammar, Dr. Mohammed Kadri Lofti, and Dr. Abu El-Futouh Radwan, Egypt ; Madame Hatinguais and Madame Mathilde Perreux, France; Mr. Nouri Jafar and Mr. Jalal Mohammed Yousif, Iraq; Dr. John W. Studebaker, the United States.) HOME LESSONS FROM EDUCATIONAL ADVENTURING ABROAD T. V. SMITH, PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, V S IVERSITY OF CHICAGO, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Chairman Simpson: Rufus Jones, the great Quaker, once preached ;i sermon in our memorial chapel in which he drew from Ecclesiastes the text that "men's souls bring forth tidings." Tonight, a philosopher and a great statesman with a soul brings us tidings, observations, a lesson from abroad. Mr. T. Y. Smith is a philosopher who has ventured deeply into the realm of action. Horn and bred on the plains of Texas, he also went to Chicago. Legislator in Illinois, Congressman-at-large from that state in the 76th Congress, author of works, in the titles and substance of which 106 American Association of School Administrators more often than not the word and the meaning of democracy appear, he is competent and though he thinks with the mind of a scholar, he speaks with a tongue of the people. I am very glad to introduce to you the Honor- able T. V. Smith, who will speak to us on "Home Lessons from Educational Adventuring Abroad." Mr. Smith : I wonder if you wouldn't like to stand up for a moment while I give you a secular invocation? [Laughter] Ladies and gentlemen: What is it, after all, that calls the life of man? The weather! What makes some black and others tan ? The weather ! What makes the Zulu live in trees while Congo natives dress in leaves and others go in fur and freeze? The weather! The weather! Sit down! [Laughter] Mr. Chairman, My Fellow Pedagogs and Fellow Politicians: I hope you understand that I was reading that poem to limber up my voice. I ran into a doorknob in the dark. But if you will bear with me for two or three minutes, I shall get all of the old overtones back once more. Sitting one day in North Africa between two British lieutenant colonels, I thought I would try on one of them what seemed to me a fair brand of American humor. I told them the story of the Northwestern mayor who had just gone over to England on a goodwill mission. Some newspaper reporters, catching him at New York just before he sailed, asked him what he was going to do. Oh, he said, he was going over on a goodwill mission. "Yeah, I know, but what are you going to do to cultivate goodwill?" one of them asked. He hadn't thought about that. He said, "Well, I'm just going over there and talk to everybody from the hoi polloi down." [Laughter] And the British lieutenant colonel's response was almost what yours was about to be. [Laughter] I waited for a minute and he didn't laugh, and it was such a little joke anyhow that I turned to the other man on my right and engaged him in conversation. Five minutes later, my friend on the left spat all of his food all over the table and just howled at the top of his voice. I had almost for- gotten the incident and I said, "What in the hell is the matter with you?" He said, "Oh, that joke you told me! That joke! I just now got it — from the hoi polloi down !" [Laughter] Two or three weeks later, I was having breakfast one morning at the British hotel in Tunis. They had a good hotel and we Americans didn't, so they very graciously took me in. Eating there was a young New Zealand captain who, fifteen years before, had gone out from England to New Zealand and had become very fond of his new home. He was a great booster, as we say. He said, "You know, there's one place in New Zealand where you can go, drop your baited hook out in the very clear water, you can see the trout swimming fifteen feet below the surface, you can watch them, and you can hook them and bring them up, and just by an about-face, you can drop them in a boiling geyser and cook them and eat them, without ever getting out of your trousers." I said, "That's remarkable. Is that the same place, sir, where you can take your cup and go to a mountainside where hot tea is pouring out, right out of the mountainside?" He said, "What did you say? Tea?" I said, Gbneral Sessions 107 "Yes, tea." He said, "Tea? Hot tea?" I said, "Yes, hot tea; probably some antediluvian deposit of tea leaves and the hot water coming out makes very good tea, I'm told. Is that the place?" "Why, no," he said, "no, that isn't the place. What did you say — tea? No, I'm sure that isn't the place." And I had to listen to him speculate for fifteen minutes as to where that place was in New Zealand. [Laughter] As Miss Carmichael so beautifully said, these idiosyncrasies of humor and of speech are unimportant, except to add to the night shift of life and make it merrier and more gay. I am tremendously pleased to be privileged to speak here as an American educator in the presence of so many of our educational colleagues from so many countries of the world, with whom we have so recently been associated in the tragedies of war. Of all the things I have learned in three years of the backwash of war — and this was not heroic; this was the unheroic part of war — was the horrible thing that our way of settling disputes does to our culture. I think perhaps more than any other man in this country, perhaps in any country, I saw more than my share in all of the great conquered countries. I shall not give you tonight a sight-seeing tour, but I shall draw in very brief compass, and with the poignancy which the subject makes appropriate, some of the very old lessons rephrased, that those of us know all too well who have to content ourselves with training in the field of human culture. Of all the things I heard, I think what made the greatest impression upon me was toward the end in Japan, a little speech which the Japanese minister of education made to an American mission of which I had the privilege of being one of twenty-five members. He prefaced the speech with some thoughts, which I shall put in these terms: He said, after thanking us for coming over to help them out, "We Japanese may find it very difficult to be a model conquered people, seeing that in more than two thousand years of national life, we have never been conquered before. We are utterly inexperienced," he went on, "at this business of being conquered. But our intentions are honorable and we shall do the very best we can to prove ourselves a model conquered people. Do you but coach us," he said, "if you see us falling short of this high resolve." And then, looking at us Americans, he said, "I wonder if you may not be in a position almost as embarrassing to you as we Japanese find ours. You may find it very difficult to be a model conquering people, seeing that in your hundred and fifty-odd years of national life you have never been in the habit of conquering other people. I know your intentions are honor- able, and I have no fear that you will make the mistake we made upon our conquered peoples in the heydey of our conquest ; that is, of trying to inflict bodily upon them our way of life, including our language and our religion." He said, "No, I do not fear that from Americans. Hut there is one thing I do fear. Let nae speak of it frankly in your presence. When I see your national youth, your collective efficiency, your individual re- sourcefulness and impatience, I