HEALTH, Help, Heartiness, Coöperation, and a good turn every day, are the aims of Scouting. Frank Cody of the Detroit schools says Schools and Scouts are twin brothers TO SATISFY the boy's healthy love of fun and activity in his out-of-school hours," says John Beveridge, Superintendent of Omaha Schools, "the Boy Scouts reduce vice and crime, build character, and deserve the active cooperation of every teacher" TH HE regular man wants the schools to boom Scouting. Chicago merchants bought a camp site which holds 500 Scouts during two-week periods. The scouts are building a stone walk, themselves. "A good turn every day" EDUCATIONAL REVIEW OCTOBER, 1926 REVIEWING SOME MATTERS OF THE MOMENT M BY THE EDITOR ANUSCRIPTS RETURNED.- that a busy man, reading them as part of his Nothing is sent back to you on ac- day's work, can go into his school with the count of poor writing. Whatever magazine in his hand and try them out difficulty professors have with Freshmen's forthwith. English the contributions of schoolmen sent to this magazine illustrate good grammar. You know your commas, colons, and capitals. But condensation is not yet a universal habit. You can speak your mind in 3000 words or less. When an article runs much over that the reader says, "I'll let that go until I have more leisure," a blessing which doesn't come until vacation, when spare time is not used in looking through back numbers. Negative manuscripts generally go back to the writers. Bless you, we schoolmasters know the world is wrong. If it weren't, half our occupation would be gone. What we teachers want is cures, successful treatments, projects that have worked to successful results, positive stuff, based on an actual trial, chapters of books you are writing in the constructive veins of our Bagleys, Baileys, Bobbitts, Briggses, Buckinghams, Butterfields, Charterses, Coffmans, Colvins, Cubberleys, Deweys, Engleharts, Fitzpatricks, Horns, Hosics, Judds, Kooses, McMurrays, Merriams, Monroes, Morrisons, Newcombs, Rosses, Ruggs, Russells, Sissons, Smiths, Sneddens, Stormzands, Strayers, Suzallos, and Thorndikes. These are the progressive fellows who are too busy forging ahead to stop to tell us what a rotten old world this is. We want short definite talks that will take some worthwhile objective and tell us how it is being ably realized. We want to print things so Gambling Schoolmasters.-Another investment scheme in which were schoolmen's dollars has smashed on the rocks. The testimony shows that teachers came into it as the result of their acquaintance with educational workers employed as selling agents. Large dividends were announced as absolutely sure-positively. In the suburbs of dozens of large cities are imposing brick or stone monuments marking the gateway to "Green Gardens," or "Credulous Court,' once booming real estate projects for enriching teachers. Within are weeds and rotting signs to mark the streets and avenues. Mexican mines, Peruvian plantations, Almond acreage, taxicab companies, rubber farms-all sorts of financial graveyards, have buried schoolmen's money and still the game goes on. William Arnold, schoolmaster, found himself in possession of thirty thousand dollars by the death of a bachelor uncle. He hastened to the office of a relative, one of the best known brokers in the Wall Street area, and asked what to do with the money. "Put half into United States government bonds and distribute the balance among savings banks," was the expert advice. Who of us would attempt to operate for appendicitis? Success in business requires no less experience or skill. A beneficent paternalism would incline school boards to forbid us to have dealings with those who would make us rich. But such prescription would keep us in the childish realm that tradition used to say was ours. Again, the wage of teaching is so low that only the big profit venture seems worth while. But why not, Oh Teachers Colleges and Normal Schools, insert somewhere a few lessons upon how educational suckers may escape being sucked in? A Path to the Parent's Purse.-From all accounts picked up here and there from school managers, the campaign to secure for schools an opportunity to exercise foresight and planning without interruption during the year, has gained headway. Superintendent O'Shea of the New York City public schools, with the aid of a committee of principals and superintendents, investigated the whole matter of collection of moneys for various purposes in schools. The result of the investigation was issued in a pamphlet outlining procedures for the government and control of the collection habit. The most important collection appeal of the year was for rebuilding Old Ironsides. Many of the best citizens and the most persuasive arguments were used in connection with the canvass. School systems which, on general principles, declined the first offer, succumbed in the face of subsequent appeals. The Chicago Board, at this writing, while sedulously abstaining from any criticisms upon the main project, has taken the position that the organization of the public schools should not be used as a pathway to the parents' purse. If the collection is to be made it should be made through churches, clubs, and voluntary organizations. The editor of the Chicago Tribune puts it in this way: "The school management has done the right, the democratic, and the academically wise thing in denying the request of the Navy Department for permission to solicit the publicschool children for contribution to the Naval fund for the restoration of the frigate Constitution. No one is more anxious than we to see the Constitution preserved as a memorial of one of the notable chapters in American naval history. We are sure the school people share this feeling. The public schools, however, are not places for the solicitation of funds for any project no matter how truly patriotic it may be. Children are not sent to school in order to be grouped into a body handy for the solicitor. The law says children must attend school. You cannot, in justice, require attendance if school means a place where children are to be asked for money. Solicitation of funds for Old Ironsides were it permitted, would be an opening wedge for solicitations for other causes. One relaxation makes a precedent for any cause seeking funds. The Constitution should be preserved, and it is a nice sentiment for school children to care enough about their country's past to wish to help save its monuments; but the schools are not the places for collections." Hallowe'en as a Test of the Public Schools.Last October an organization of Chicago principals and teachers selected Hallowe'en as an occasion for trying out the transfer of civic training to situations difficult for the young citizens. For years the city, like many others, had experienced a breakdown of good manners on Hallowe'en. Private property had been trespassed upon, garbage cans overturned, gates unhinged, wagons. drawn out of sheds and left in the streets to the danger of automobilists, "tick-tacks" fastened to windows, glass soaped, soot bags thrown on door steps, boxes stolen and burned. The Chicago school people came at the matter from many angles: preparation-they gave inspiring lessons on the manliness of gratitude to "a city that pays for your education;" substitution-they arranged a large number of merry parties, they induced Parent-Teacher associations to do the same, they secured free matinees in the motion picture houses; follow-up, they arranged with the police officers to report the name and school of every juvenile malefactor, they told their schools this report would be made, they upheld the idea of loyalty to one's family, school, and city. The newspapers helped; so did the associa |