PLAN FOR ADVISORY COUNCIL IN SAN

P

FRANCISCO

URPOSE: To provide a means of recording the expression of opinion of the men and women of experience and judgment who come closest to the problems affecting the schools, the children and the teachers.

To furnish information and the opinions of the teaching staff upon questions submitted by the Board of Education, the Superintendent of Schools or initiated by the Council.

For the introduction of recommendations concerning any of the problems affecting the welfare of the schools.

To establish and expedite means of communication between the teaching body and the Administration.

Te secure a more active participation of the teachers in the professional direction of the schools.

To foster a spirit of dignity and responsibility in the teaching staff by employing its experience and judgment in the formation of school policies.

courses of study, text-books, home work, promotion and retardation, part time sessions, school records and clerical work, ratings of teachers, absence deductions, and the sabbatical year.

The foregoing plan for an Advisory Council submitted by the Legislative Committee after a year and a half of investigation and study, and approved by the members of the Grade Teachers' Association at the semi-annual general meeting, has in it some points which it might be well to emphasize.

The Council it provides is not a soviet for it has no authority beyond that implied in its name and it may be brought into existence only by the act of the Administration which alone has the power to ask or receive its counsel.

It is in the interest of harmony for it ignores all organizations of teachers and makes the basis of the Council the entire teaching body as brought together by law under the supervision of the Superintendent in the County Institute.

It can in no possible manner be construed as an attack or criticism of any person now holding office in any organization for all or ganizations will have had an election of officers before it can become effective.

In it representation is apportioned according to the number in each group. Through this some groups may be entitled to a greater representation than others but this should give no uneasiness. The work of the Council is advisory only, and, in case of disagreement, a minority report may be presented. The responsibility of action is never with the CounThat remains with the regularly constituted administrative authorities.

cil.

This plan was submitted because it conformed to the general principles underlying the idea of the Advisory Council and also because it is felt that this type of Council might bring about a better understanding and cooperation throughout the teaching body.

What about the present organizations if such a Council should be created? Well, they might lay aside their attitudes of suspicion and belligerency, proceed along the lines for which they were organized, and incidentally bring to the attention of the Department, those teachers qualified for service in the Council.

MARY F. MOONEY, Grade Teachers' Bulletin.

SCHOOL COUNCILS

In the recent selection of a Superintendent's Council of ten members, by San Diego teachers, there was formulated the function of such a body in the following terms:

To provide a means of recording the expression of opinion of the men and women of experience and judgment whọ come closest to the problems affecting the schools, the children and the teachers.

To furnish information and the opinions of the teaching staff upon questions submitted by the board of education, the superintendent of schools or initiated by the council.

For the introduction of recommendations concerning any of the problems affecting the welfare of schools.

To establish and expedite means of communication between the teaching body and the superintendent.

To secure a more active participation of the teachers in the professional direction of the schools.

To foster a spirit of dignity and responsibility in the teaching staff by employing its experience and judgment in the formation of school policies.

Topics for consideration should include courses of study text books, home work, promotion and retardation, part time sessions, truancy and delinquency, school records and clerical work, rating of teachers and absence deductions.

EARLY TRAINING IN CITIZENSHIP Hon. P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner

S

HE problems arising in the reconstruction period demand quite as much devotion to country as those of the war. Conditions of Social unrest can only be settled by justice and right training in citizenship. The kindergarten provides this right training early in life. The hope of our nation lies in our children and all of the 4,300,000 little ones of kindergarten age should have this training which only 500,000 are now receiving.

The democratic kindergarten is the ideal place for first lessons in efficiency, adaptability, and good citizenship. The games teach fair play, honesty and consideration for the rights of others; the patriotic songs and stories sow the seed of love of country; the block building, clay modeling and paper work lay the foundations of the skilled mechanic and teach head

If more of our neglected little children could have this splendid training in honesty, efficiency and self-control, there would be a tremendous saving of money to the state in the maintenance of reformatories, prisons and asylums. Our park benches contain many pathetic examples of dishonest, inefficient, lawless men whose early years were wasted. What better investment can we make of our time, our money and our effort than to forestall this lamentable result of neglect by early training in honesty, efficiency and adaptability, making citizens who are an asset and not a liability to the state?

Appreciation of the kindergarten is growing, and parents all over the country should work to secure its advantages for their little ones, all of whom are entitled to receive them.

"In order that a profession, such as teaching, may rest upon a sound economic basis, there must be, first, opportunity to qualify with reasonable speed and a fair compensation, and, second, opportunity to earn one of the great prizes of the profession."-Nicholas Murray Butler.

"Quite apart from the injustice of compensating so meagerly persons that are performing an important public service for which they have spent years preparing themselves, it is poor economy to degrade in the public esteem a calling vital to the public weal and to advertise the fact that only incompetents are wanted by paying a wage fit only for incompetents." -Arthur Cushman McGiffert.

"There are thousands of towns in the United States which pay a first-class teacher less than $300 a year. That is less than $7 a week. And on that $7 the teacher must dress, eat, live. buy books, keep informed, keep well-bred, keep alive mentally. It is ludicrous that human beings should pay an instructor $300 a year for taking care of their minds and six times as much for taking care of horses, cows and hogs. And yet this is what they do "-George Stetson Kirkland.

"All intelligent, well trained men are assets to any community. Education is and should continue to be an investment of society to insure progress. Funds for education should be fixed charges on the going concerns of all humanity, and that community which skimps on its overhead charge for purposes of education is more foolish than the business man who sets aside no funds to replace depreciation in his plant and who carries no insurance,"-Sid

T

They

do not create wealth in which they are entitled to a measurable share, but imponderable values, for which they are rewarded according to public appreciation. Their unionization is largely a sham, for they organize less to exert concerted economic pressure than political pressure through an alliance with labor. Second, in their special relation to their employers they have special means of satisfying just demands. The laborer has often to face the private employer's consistent selfishness, but the teacher can appeal to public generosity by enlightening the public opinion. Third, in unionizing they identify themselves with a special and sometimes narrow element in the community, and one often involved in hot controversy. The teachers have to consider how employers may feel, in certain junctures, about placing their children under instructors "affiliated" with unions; how non-union workers may feel, and how professional men with no special interest in either union or employers' activities will feel. Fourth, the union will take the place of organizations which might be of much broader value.

This last argument the N. E. A. has every right to stress. Educational problems were urgent enough before the war. With faults in our education plainly demonstrated under the strain, with Europe taking impressive measures for educational reorganization, the country needs what information and counsel the great body of teachers can furnish. Their influence should be felt in the separate communities, and nationally in some authoritative way. Except rarely, teachers' unions would be as illadapted to form and lead sentiment as have proved one or two teachers' bodies with which New York city is acquainted, narrow, squabbling, and interested chiefly in selfish lobbying. But such a dignified, intelligent, public spirited organization as the N. E. A., if well founded upon state and local organizations,

might serve large and useful ends. The type of organization is required which would develop professional consciousness and pride and a demand for high standards; would establish effective channels for the expression of teachers' opinions on educational matters; would supply the public with full and correct information; would demonstrate the need for greater expenditures in education and for more federal activity to spur and assist the states, and would work always to increase the harmony among the rank and file of teachers, the administrative staffs, and the public. These objects, it happens, were laid down by the N. E. A. six months ago. The N. E. A.'s chief leaders clearly have great faith in the possibilities of reorganization. Ex-President George Strayer said at Milwaukee that he hoped to see many field organizers at work, educational units multiplied in the land, and that "when our half million teachers agree upon educational policies and make insistent demands in keeping with national progress, these demands will be heard in Congress." The new president, Mrs. J. C. Preston, state superintendent in Washington, declared that an inclusive association of teachers "could accomplish wonders."

Many educators plainly hope the next few years will witness a rapid centralization of educational work in the United States. They may fail of obtaining a department of education or the federal appropriations of the SmithTowner Bill, but will still trust that local administration may more and more yield to state administration, state administration more and more admit federal advice and help. Naturally, in view of this hope, a larger and better centralized organization of the teachers of the country is desirable.-New York Post.

HISTORY OF THE THRIFT MOVEMENT

IN AMERICA

By S. W. Straus

one,

"Thrift began with civilization. It began when men found it necessary to provide for tomorrow as well as for today. It began long before money was invented." So wrote Samuel Smiles forty years ago. The Lippincott Thrift Text Series of which this volume on the history of the Thrift movement in America is preaches no new doctrine but an emphasis of a much neglected practice. Reference is made to the ideals of the Hebrews, the teachings of the Bible, the Shakespearian phrase, De Foe's essays, Beutham's, "frugality banks," etc., but the first American Savings Bank was barely 100 years ago. There followed or accompanied in that early movement, annuity societies, savings funds associations, and provident institutions. In time there came Postal Savings Banks, (1910), and a generation earlier Building and Loan Associations. The first school Savings Bank in the United States was in 1885. Other forms of a Thrift and Conservation effort are health provisions, time-saving, profitsharing, school and home gardening, land reclamation, etc. It is a long list covering a relatively short period; and the story is effectively told by one who, from his youth has practiced what he preaches. Two ideals stand out in the entire treatment: (1) that waste of every sort must be eliminated-the greater thrift-constructive, scientific, liberal, the thrift that builds character and that comes through education; and (2) that this training in thrift must begin in childhood; youth is too late and in adult life next to impossible. The financial creed as a part of the economic program of the Y. M. C. A. (quoted by the author) fairly characterized the thrift creed as summarized in this book: "Make a budget; keep a record of your expenditures; have a bank account; carry life insurance; make a will; own a home; pay your bills; invest in government securities and share with others." The book is so rich in information, so admirably presented, and the thought so well-organized, that it could be easily used as a text in Normal Schools and for supplementary reference work in high schools, and should be familiar to every principal and teacher having the care of Youth. The set will deserve a place in every teacher's library.

A History of American Literature. By Percy H. Boynton. Ginn and Company, pages 500,. $2.25.

Scarcely more than a score of authors are given extended notice. This is not a history of writers. Many details to be found in the traditional text are omitted here. Minor authors are omitted or noted in a summary way only. It is a book of cultural movements as they have found enduring expression in literature; the progress of American ideals; the highways of

sition to the XVIII century, Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin, the early drama and the rise of fiction, the poetry of the South, and the West and Mark Twain, are titles of chapters that indicate this tendency to trace movements, rather than describe literary forms. Το this end there is apparent the attempt "to induce study of representative classics and extensive reading of the American literature which illuminates the past of the country." For further study there are appended to the several chapters a few choice reference lists; and at the end of the book, a table of the American periodicals (53 of them) established since 1800. Among the references are selected magazine articles pertinent to the chapter discussions. Leaders of the Great War. By Cora W. Rowell, The Macmillan Company, pages 336.

It will be long before we shall have reached the end of the list of books for schools growing out of the World War. In the hands of a skill. ful writer, who is also a teacher, there is so much material that so easily becomes an educative agency, that one can find only pleasure in the prospect. And of all the possible materials biography is one of the most available for later childhood and youth, and the safest in its human effects. of Here are, briefly, the life stories eleven famous men, most of them born between 1850 and 1860; four are French, Joffre, Petain. Foch, Clemenceau; two English, Kitchener and Beatty; one Haig, Scotch, and George, Welsh; three, Sims, Pershing and Wilson, American. While much of each narrative is absorbed by the military history of the last five years, the childhood and youth and early education and occupations are not neglected. It is a wholesome book for young men of almost any age, from twelve onward.

one

General Mathematics. By Raleigh Scharling and William D. Reeve. Ginn & Co. Pages 488.

It is scarcely to be expected that the college mathematician will think this book safe. As the title implies it is a "general" mathematics, and carries along through 400 pages arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry; a distinctly new kind of introductory text, based throughout on the problem method, not mere examples and formal exercises. It begins with equations and Covers angles and the equations of angle relations, area and volume, positive and negative quantities, graphic statics and the graphics of formula and functions, construction of similar figures, scale drawing and trigonometry, simultaneous linear equations, roots and powers. The course has had before publication some years of use in mimeograph form in large and small high schools, in junior high schools and in School of Education Training Schools with evident success. No teacher of mathematics below university grade can afford to be unfamiliar with the content and method of "General Mathemat

This is one of the Riverside Educational Monographs, but of quite double size. As its subtitle indicates it records an experiment in Social education. "The test of the schoolmaster is to create a foundation for international understanding. The volume here presented is devised as an aid to American school teachers who would begin to widen the civic horizon of their pupils. It takes critical note of the Report of the Committee of Seven on the Study of History in Schools, and the N. E. A. Reports of the Committee on Social Studies in Secondary Education and expands the idea of the latter. The twenty pages on the method and aims of such study are particularly good. A topical outline and reading references accompany the study of each of the nine nations, and the Philippine Islands-A Nation in Making. In addition there is an excellent 10-page general bibliographical list of value to the teacher for her own library.

Time Education. By Robert J. Leonard. University of California Press. The significant feature of recent educational tendencies is not the new emphasis put upon vocational, as distinct from academic training, but the effort to combine the two, conserving and promoting the desirable features of both; that the worker, in whatever field, may have a richer background of reflective theory and academic discipline, and the scholar may add to his faith, works; to his knowldge, skill. These purposes have led to new types of schools and methods, new administrative machinery, a new clientele of the school, a new kind of teacher. We are coming to have the continuous school, cooperative training, direct and supplemental studies, specific education aiming at skill but with a semicultural back-ground. All these are in addition to the regular full-time trade and technical schools, and seek to reach, and extend the training of those already under occupational contract. These are provided for by what is known as the Smith-Hughes Act of Congress whereby the Federal and State governments cooperate for vocational education. This provides, in California, for example, for two types of school,-the day continuation school and evening classes. The California Part-time Education Law, approved May 27, 1919, provides for part-time civic and Vocational training for all persons under 18 years of age who are not in the regular schools; and part-time citizenship education for those under 21 years who are illiterate in English. The Syllabus here noted concerns the part-time instruction of these two groups.

Dr. Snyder, State Commissioner of Vocational Education contributes a foreword as to the meaning of the act in health and citizenship. Following which are sixteen short chapters prepared under the general direction. Robert J. Leonard, Professor of Vocational Education, University of California. The bulletin exhibits part-time education in industry, agri

of

culture, commerce and home economics, the organization and administration of such classes, and citizenship and health under this act.

There are four appendices giving 14 selected articles on phases of the subject. The bulletin constitutes a comprehensive and critical and authoritative presentation of the purposes and organization and administration of the Act as it stands upon the California statutes. Board of Education members, Superintendents, School Principals, Special Supervisors and teachers of special subjects will find the Syllabus a ready and useful reference. It appears as Bulletin No. 1, of Series Number 1, General Vocational Education, cooperation of the University of California and the State Board of Education. Exercises in Arithmetic. By Floe E. Correll and May E. Frances. Correll-Frances Company. Pages 70. 30c.

The express purpose of this little book is "to furnish a group of exercises and problems that may serve as a drill and as a test of the pupil's ability in arithmetic. It is not a text book." Contests and games are suggested and described. Problems are included for all important divisions of the subject; and the exercises throughout are sensible. The collection may be used with any text prescribed for the school. Free Trade, the Tariff and Reciprocity. By F. W. Taussig. The Macmillan Company. Pages 216. $2.00.

While the volume is a late issue (1920), the articles, a dozen of them, cover a period of original publication of almost a score of years. Nevertheless there is a distinct consistency of treatment in them all. It is a judicial consideration of a series of problems, fairly indicated by the title of the book, and to be regarded as of increasing importance during the after-the-war competition upon which all the nations are entering. Much free-trade and tariff discussion as it has been known in this country for a half century or more is of so technical a character that it is neither intelligible nor enlightening to the average, untrained reader. It is quite within the truth to say that any intelligent business man, farmer, shopman, teacher, may find here stimulating discussion. The chapters on the tariff, tariff and wages, and tariff and prices, as well as that on how tariffs should not be made are particularly good.

The At

The Light. By Constance T. Brice. lantic Monthly Press. This little booklet is a Libretto of a Pageant which was presented at the N. E. A. convention in Cleveland the week of February 23-28. It was written by an Assistant Superintendent of Schools in Cleveland, and aims to body forth the service of education to "any city," the insufficiency of tradition, the force of originality, the evils of class-training, the virtues of democracy, the progress from the old Dame School to the best contemporary classes-and a hint of what the future school may be, when "cities shall speak no more of the cost of education. but fear rather the cost of ignorance." It is a charming setting for a school pageant.