EDUCATIONAL REVIEW FEBRUARY, 1926 AN EDITORIAL REVIEW TWO February Holidays.-I wonder celebration. Another program for adult what Washington and Lincoln would citizens and engaging an eminent speaker think of the use to which we put their from some other city to deliver the oration of the day is a yearly feature of the club's observance. birthdays. We display the stars and stripes. We go to the theatre or the movies; we loaf and idle. Both men were about as far removed from idleness as imagination can conceive. Mr. Maxwell, once superintendent of the New York City schools, used every year to argue against shutting them on these two occasions. "They ought," he said, "to be devoted to industrious patriotism. There should be assembled in every school house not only the children but all their parents to review the public services of these two ideal Americans." For many years Chicago high schools, under the leadership of the Union League Club have devoted the day to a renewal of the principles realized in the life of Washington. Uncle John Benham of that club plans the program. In September every year he calls together the principals of the twenty-four high schools and gets an executive committee appointed, a different one each year. These men and women with Uncle John arrange a program of pageantry, music, and discourse. A notable feature of it is the wide participation in the speech writing. From the large number of trials a few of the best are selected for delivery. With singular directness the committee sets themes that draw the work out of the historic and academic into the serviceable field. One year it is "What Washington means to me"; at another time: "If Washington were here today," and so on. The city Auditorium is rented by the Union League Club for the In this number of the EDUCATIONAL REVIEW appears an article on Abraham Lincoln written by President Herrick of Girard College. It is intended for school boys. You will find excellent suggestions in it for the school celebration you intend. You will find also an assembly reading for Washington's birthday. What a Teachers' College Does.-Among the newspaper clippings sent to this REVIEW there is a notable number commenting with praise upon the work of Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. James Russell, the Dean, seems to have achieved the unusual feat of making an annual report so interesting as to get it read by newspaper men. It costs $3,800,000 and more to run the college one year. There are 9,204 teachers studying here coming from 450 colleges and normal schools. Of these students 308 are from abroad representing 55 countries. Class-room instruction, educational research, field work and foreign service make up the year's activities. Projects completed during the year included studies of the costs of public education in four cities, the proper seats for class rooms, general surveys for four communities, international coöperation, tests of the worth of all the schools in the Philippines, participation in the establishment of China's Foundation for the promotion of education, an investi gation of the schools of Mexico, extramural courses for teachers in 22 cities, placing 1,772 teachers in positions. Theory in Practice.-More and more there are coming to the editorial desk forms in use in different schools indicative of the working out of the theory that an institution should be judged by its output. The latest arrival is the commendation card sent in from the Morris High School, New York, by James Peabody, the versatile teacher of biology in that institution. COMMENDATION CARD MORRIS HIGH SCHOOL Last Name First Name Class Date as the product of an elementary school. The Brooklyn list, like the Morris High School card, was based on the school's duty to furnish an able citizen to the community. This is the Brooklyn analysis: Health, agility, cleanliness, good posture. Good personal appearance. Attention to dress, erect figure. Audible voice, clear and correct speech. Self-control, ability to look you in the eye, courage, absence of the impediment of shyness. Deftness of hand, including legible, shapely penmanship, power of simple graphic representation, ability to use common tools and simple machines. Punctuality; economy of time and ma terial. Ability and tendency to think, to compare PUPIL DESERVING SPECIAL COM- ideas, and to reach consistent conclusions. MENDATION BECAUSE OF Check reason assigned I. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS: Tendency to reflect before important action. Mental economy. Ability to study a problem intelligently and to summarize essentials in a reasonable time; intelligent application. Orderliness. Tendency to plan. Ability to comprehend and to reproduce in writing or by word of mouth printed or oral discourse of reasonable difficulty. Accuracy and reasonable speed in such computations as the ordinary citizen is called upon to make and in such quantitative work with tools and material as is pertinent to the tool-work and machine work of the school. Appreciation of the value of money, of the advantage of intelligent spending, and of thrift. An efficient knowledge of the usual sources of information. Skill in using them. Conception of the intellectual inheritance of mankind. Possession of a reasonable fund of information resulting from the conventional studies, including especially the duties of a citizen. Knowledge of the main avenues of selfsupport, the nature of occupations, wages, and opportunities. |