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cedure, or tolerance of a tentative scheme of organization as a working basis. Unfortunately, however, conditions were more serious. So far as the program or the report of the council was concerned, there was no evidence that the pressing problems of organization and administration had really been approached. It was an open secret that months had been allowed to elapse before important committees were appointed or had organized; the council itself had held no meeting until a few hours before the first business session, altho some attempt had been made to conduct business by correspondence; and only one standing committee reported. The names of more than 500 proposed members in itself a gratifying proof of the widespread interest of university men in this new undertaking-were dumped upon the Association without being printed, and were accepted, with a few deletions, en bloc, without opportunity for effective consideration by the members present, and with misgivings as to the degree of attention given to them by the council. The extremely important question of the formation of local or regional groups, and their proper relation to the main body, elicited only a vague and unsatisfactory recommendation from the council, and was referred back for further consideration. A council of thirty members, made up of members scattered thruout the United States, is not likely to meet save in immediate connection with the annual meeting of the Association; and the outlook for careful consideration of necessary business by so cumbersome a body is not hopeful.

"Clearly, if the Association is to become, as every one of its members earnestly hopes that it will become, an effective means for organizing and voicing professorial opinion and conserving professorial interests, it must bestir itself. Another such meeting as that at Washington, and the Association will be dead. Until professors realize that intellectual eminence is not the same thing as organizing ability, that rights are not to be safeguarded simply by asseverating them, and that the observance or recognized parliamentary order in debate is the most expeditious way

of doing business, the 'usurpation' of presidents and governing boards will continue. Almost at the outset of its career, the Association has come unhappily to a parting of the ways. It ought to be the immediate and continuing concern of every member that, before the next annual meeting, the Association shall be effectively and vigorously organized."

Does not this make it plain that our excellent friends, the professors, need help, and that before their promising association is permitted to go to smash they should call for help from those skilled and trained in educational administration, whether as deans, as presidents or even as trustees? May it not be that the very best protectors of the interests of university professors are the competent university officers who themselves occupy administrative positions? At all events, this is a question which many of us here are asking with some insistence. We do not want the American Association of University Professors to fail, but fail it certainly will unless it retires from its suicidal position that a professor who is incompetent for business or unused to it has some esoteric professional interest that is not shared by the professor who is competent for business and used to it.

CHICAGO, ILL. February 1, 1916

A LOOKER-ON IN BABYLON

IX
REVIEWS

Commercial work and training for girls-By Jeanette EATON and BERTHA M. STEVENS. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1915. 289 p. $1.50.

The material for this book was gathered and put into form under the auspices of The Cooperative Employment Bureau for Girls of Cleveland, Ohio. The book comes as a result of a survey undertaken to discover what care and training girls receive who plan to enter office work, whether this training is adequate, and what are the demands and the inducements for girls in the field of such work. We find here summarized the result of the labors of one field worker on full time for more than a year. This field worker had the organized but intermittent assistance of twenty-five helpers, including teachers, business women, social workers, and unemployed college women.

A very interesting presentation of facts is arrayed— facts vital, suggestive, and eminently useful. The basis upon which these facts rest may be understood by noting the many records included in the survey: an analysis and tabulation of the records of nearly fifteen hundred office girls, those of several hundred eighth-grade public school pupils, of nearly five hundred places of office employment, of thirty-three different kinds of business, of numerous employers of girls, and of many detailed records of business schools.

Those who have made even a superficial study of the afterschool records of grammar school graduates who, immediately after graduation, enter the work-shop or office, know that such pupils usually hold the lowest-grade business positions. They know, too, of unscrupulous managers of private commercial schools and of soliciting campaigns conducted by them to lure unsuspecting and ignorant

youth into their nets. They know, also, that the longer a student remains in school, the better the academic and technical training, the more rapid the rise in the business world will be and the larger the remuneration. These are not new facts and we assume that they were known in Cleveland in a general way as matters of individual experience. The knowledge in this case, however, comes now from exact information obtained at first hand. The survey proves that Cleveland has her full share of private schools managed for personal revenue only, and that such schools receive poorly prepared girls and that they give inefficient training.

Facts have been educed that apply to all instruction in commercial branches, the chief fact being the need of greater preparation in English of prospective office assistants. Another fact is that there should be greater maturity before office work is undertaken by girls. Eighteen years is placed as the minimum desirable age. A plea for the better management of the night commercial schools follows the charge of failure of the public night schools to cover this field of instruction adequately. Incidentally, there is a declaration in favor of the "six-three-three" plan because "it gives scope for trying out tendencies, bridges the gap between elementary and high schools, and postpones the students' final choice of vocational training." The human interest is supplied by the recital of personal incidents in the life of office girls, incidents both humorous and pathetic. The "snapshots of superintendents and the teaching force in the private commercial schools" make spicy reading.

The book is a very creditable piece of work emphasizing, as it does, the need for closer correlation between the theory of school instruction and actual business practise. The suggestions for the improvement of commercial courses are timely and helpful. Teachers in commercial schools of all grades will be profited by acquaintanceship with this serious study. The plea for the standardization of private school work is one which should be heeded in every state where such schools now run riot. The tabulations are

numerous and enlightening. We regret to note a misuse of the word, only, on page forty-two.

GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

WILLIAM L. FELTER

Discipline as a school problem-By ARTHUR C. PERRY, JR. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1915. 273 P.

That the nature of boys and girls has not been entirely metamorphosed by the recent improvements in school organization and methods is made evident by the appearance of a third book on discipline within two years. But merely a casual inspection of these books shows the great difference between the contemporary authors and those who wrote a generation ago for brisk wielders of birch and rule. In the introduction to his Discipline as a school problem, Dr. Perry urges for the treatment of misconduct in school a method similar to that used by a physician when called to see a patient: "first, diagnosis; then, the application of fundamental truths with all the skill and intelligence at the command of the physician, whether of the body or of the soul." Thruout the book, Dr. Perry discusses both means of diagnosis and principles of treatment, tho chiefly the former, as they concern the individual, the class, and the school.

This is an admirable plan, thoroly approved by the spirit of modern education, and a mere reading of the analytical table of contents should prove stimulating to any thoughtful school-man who is practically concerned with discipline. For the classroom teacher, however, the thirty-four very brief chapters will need supplementation and concrete illustration before the basic exposition will be of any large amount of immediate value. As such amplification is not given, it is particularly unfortunate that there is no appended bibliography of the books that would prove most helpful to a reader in search of further help.

While heartily approving the plan of the book and in general the way in which it is developed, the critical reader

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