YOOKING for Boys vs. the Fear of Ridicule. When Clarence Meleney organized in the New York City High Schools a committee of teachers and principals to outline a plan for more direct attention to character as an aim of public school education, he delivered an address to the committee. In it he said he was convinced that the greatest disturber of youth is fear. We inherit the dreads passed on to us from a line of ancestors running back through thousands of years of ignorance and savagery. We are afraid of the dark, afraid of the unknown, afraid of ridicule, afraid of danger, afraid of being hurt in body or in self-esteem, afraid of death, afraid of punishment thereafter. John Arthur Greene used to say that school men are more afraid of ridicule than any others are except politicians. William H. Maxwell once said that school boards made up of individuals personally uncowardly are more timid than school masters, thus creating the paradox that the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Many believe that in Maxwell's day the school board was afraid of its superintendent.

More than a generation has passed since cooking was introduced into public schools. During all this time there have been plenty of boys who desired to be taught how to cook. In 1892 a group of them petitioned the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn to organize a class to teach them the ancient and honorable art culinary. They were admitted. They were instructed in building a fire out of doors, in the skilful use of saucepan and pot, how to dress and cook fish,

fowl, and good red herring, and how to wash dishes. In every public school in which the girls were sent to the kitchen and the boys to the shop have been lads who hungered for the skill of the fire and oven, lasses who wished to wield the hammer and saw. On asking a number of school managers why these healthy appetites were denied, I get the common answer: fear-fear of the newspapers, fear of the fear of the school board.

William Bogan started a boys' class for bakers in the Lane Technical High School, Chicago. It is still baking. Principal Edward Wildeman, of the Shields School, acting up to his name, instituted "Exchange classes," putting such boys as wished it into the kitchen on designated days, and girls at the joiners' bench. Principal Ida Mighell of the John Hay School gave a few boys the run of the kitchen. It came about from a discussion of scout camps, of the life of the civil engineers and forest rangers. The other boys came, hat in hand, and begged to be let in.

"Cooking for boys," says Miss Mighell, "is distinctly popular." In the annual report of the Chicago schools for the year ending June, 1925, is a brief account of the adventure, saying: "Did the boys like it? They ate it up. How about the girls? They want to keep on sawing wood!" Nine months have passed since the deed was, if I may use a favorite word of the Chicago newspaper chroniclers of school doings, "revealed." But the local press has not yet discovered it. But as soon as this number of the REVIEW appears we may expect the usual journalistic sensation: "it

was revealed today that Chicago schools are teaching boys to cook and girls to saw, etc., etc."

The REVIEW as Sensation Supply. If you recall our review of Munroe and Henry's study of war propaganda in school histories which I printed on page One in the REVIEW in January, you will be interested in the turn it gets in the Chicago press. On the front page of the morning newspaper, January 10, it appears: "SPIRIT OF '76 BAD IN SCHOOL, SAYS SUPERINTENDENT." Then follows after the large type: "The spirit of '76 and suggestions that tend to perpetuate the war spirit will be outlawed from classrooms, etc., etc." Do you remember how that superpatriotic gentleman, Philander Claxton, was twisted into the shape of a treason monger by the newspapers? Claxton made some common sense assertion to the effect that unless the idealism for which the flag stands is felt and practiced, the flag is nothing but a bit of colored cloth. Wow! "CALLS THE FLAG NOTHING BUT COLORED CLOTH,' was headlined all over the country. Daughters of the Revolution, Colonial Dames, Grand Army Posts, resolved and declared, until a lot of perfectly good righteous indignation was aroused and wasted. To say that a superintendent calls "The Spirit of '76 bad in school" is a damage to him. To pick from your discourse scattered sentences, to entitle them in large type with an interpretation intended to be a sensational distortion, is so common a trick of these days of hectic stress that one may well believe Mr. Meleney's assertion that all of us are surrounded by those who seek to create an atmosphere of fear. As school boys we took great delight in putting on Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. One song rings in memory and seems to fit the intent of the writer of the school scare-head:

I'll dissemble, I'll dissemble
When he sees at what I'm driving
Let him tremble, let him tremble.

More Ridicule.-Do you remember an article in the REVIEW on "Looking the

Part"? It is on Page 99 in the number for September, 1925. Weeks after it was printed, a Chicago newspaper reporter discovered it, translating it into an announcement of what the Superintendent of Chicago Schools intended to require the teachers of that city to wear. The Associated Press and the United Press wired the glad news to a waiting nation: "SUPERINTENDENT

WILL FUT SCHOOL TEACHERS IN UNIFORM. "SUPERINTENDENT CALLS CHICAGO TEACHERS DOWDY." An alderman of my acquaintance said: "You don't want publicity and are getting thousands of dollars worth; I need publicity and am getting hardly any." Isn't life odd? We who consider notoriety cheap and foolish, who keep our opinions and recommendations for our own boards and departments, get this abundance of advertisement which is absolutely useless to us and often harmful, alienating the sober, solid people whom the schools need. At the same time, the hungry chaps for whom it is a valuable asset, have to beg and coax and inveigle to get a line of print. My friend, the alderman, who calls the reporters, "the newspaper boys" beseeches them: "Mention me favorably if you can, but if you can't then do knock me. Anything is better than oblivion.”

A Good Old Mind Cure.-There is no use in writing to the editors. They don't see any harm in ridiculing you. They know that the majority, even of your friends, enjoy seeing fun poked at anyone even you. The best advice is that of Anaximander, 546 B.C., who, unfortunately, is dead at present: "When thou art suffering misfortune, look upon thyself as thou wouldst look upon another suffering that misfortune." That is, if your newspaper twists your ideas and views into something sensational, imagine that instead of to you the newspapers are doing it to me. You will notice that you don't mind much what they do to me. Then transfer your not minding me much. Look at yourself as you look at me. and you get the relief Anaximander prescribed 2572 years ago.

You really can't get irate at these chaps. They are not themselves angry. They misrepresent you in the same sort of spirit which leads the management of amusement places to set up those awful distorting mirrors. The more one makes faces under these trials, the funnier he becomes.

Newspapers Helping the Community. Of course it is easier in a smaller town to get more help for the schools from the newspapers. The proportion of teacher-customers of the advertising merchants is greater. The neighborly relations of the editor and publisher with the business men and ordinary citizens is closer. Washington, Indiana, has a young woman who has done wonders in the way of getting the newspaper to join with the school in humanizing the town. She is May Robinson, art teacher in the public school. I heard her give a little speech at the Convention of the Ohio State Teachers' Association, at Columbus, during the Christmas holidays. In the most matter-of-fact, simple manner she told the audience how her home town discovered that it longed for art. She drew more laughter, admiration, and approval from that assembly of school superintendents than all the rest of the professional orators and "eminent educators" put together.

It seems that Miss Robinson, who went as a country girl to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, could not help being impressed by the remarkable difference between the art opportunities in New York with its abundance of picture shops and galleries and those of the ordinary Indiana small town. The first thing to do was to have an exhibit. She secured a collection of paintings by the talented wife of the director of the Pratt Institute Art School. Where to show them? She converted the high school gymnasium into an art gallery. How to get the people out? Have an art tea! Everybody in town who showed any willingness to help was put on different committees for the art tea. How to advertise? Why not use the regular advertisers in the Washington Herald?

But what do they know about art? Get them to put art mottoes and maxims at the head of their advertisements.

Behold! The next edition of the Herald appears with a line entirely across the top VISIT OUR ART EXHIBIT AT THE GYMNASIUM NEXT WEEK, and up and down and crosswise in the advertising columns appear these startling reminders: ART IS THE PERFECTION OF NATURE Our Pies are the Perfection of Art Washington Pie Co.

ARTS HAVE SOME COMMON TIES
We have some uncommon ties
Hapgoods-Men's Furnishings

THE PERFECTION OF ART CONSISTS
IN FOLLOWING AND IMPROVING
NATURE'S LAWS
We are therefore artists
Eastern Beauty Parlors

IT IS NOT STRENGTH BUT ART
OBTAINS THE PRIZE

This is true of our butter and its lovely forms
Washington Dairy Co.

ART IS NATURE HELPED BY MAN
That describes our roses
Wilson, Florist

ART IS POWER

So is Electricity

Washington Light & Power Co.

THE PERFECTION OF ART IS TO CONCEAL ART

Try our invisible hairnets Mme. Lucille's Hairdressing Parlors

The Columbus audience who heard this clever girl describe the preparation for the art exhibit had more than a half suspicion that the that the advertisements of Washington merchants were furnished to them by the art teacher, and that when the Washington schools secured a good instructor some advertising agency lost a good manager.

The next big hit was Miss Robinson's promise from the editor of the Herald to run some articles by local eminences with

an art twist. In a moment of enthusiasm, the editor promised to publish all the articles on art that could be secured from people in town. He demanded returns within a week. Down Main Street went the art teacher. The drygoods merchant, the jeweler, the baker, the confectioner, even the bootblack were drafted. "We didn't miss anybody," said the art missionary. "We went to the librarian, the minister, the mayor, the judges, the clubwomen, and the superintendent of schools. Enlisted in a good cause, we found our nerve unlimited. We said to the people: Our editor wants our town to participate in Art Week. I did not know until this idea popped into my head that there was to be an Art Week. But the folks I talked to thought Art Week was a national institution, extending over the entire country. I wish it were. They did not want to be behind in the procession. Without knowing it, they were the beginning and middle and tail end of Art Week for the whole country, for nobody else had one. We had a good many heart-to-heart talks with these people, one after another, about the real function of art, and we did not leave anybody until each one had promised that if we would come back in a few days, he would have something for us. This was a busy week; the librarian worked overtime. Every time one of my contracting writers met anybody on the street, he said: 'For the Lord's sake, what do you know about art?' The town was vaccinated with it. It took. After a few days I started down Main Street again. Some of the articles were ready, but in some cases, those lazy people made me compose their stories for them. I told each of the slow ones everything that I knew about art, and some other things besides. On the appointed day, I staggered into the editor's office with an armful of manuscripts. He nearly dropped dead. 'If you were a man,' he said, 'I would know how to deal with you.' It was good to be a lady. But he was game. He printed the articles, all of them, four beautiful, solid pages, all about art, with a lovely letter

from the Governor of the State of Indiana printed in a box at the top of the page: 'I am gratified to know that Art will permeate your town and result in better manual arts, better dress, better homes. It should be encouraged by the public generally.'

"The window trimmer had written an article on 'Art in the Window.' The department store on 'Art in Furniture.' The cloak and suit store on 'Art in Readyto-Wear.' The druggist on 'Art Indispensable.' The librarian told of all the artistic things in her collection. The Baltimore and Ohio Railway agent even found art in the safety campaign of that road. We had 'Art in Real Estate,' 'Art in Cooking,''Clubwomen and Art,' 'Civic Art,' and 'Art in the Schools.' Across the top of the pages: 'Visit the Art Exhibition in the Washington Art Gallery (High School Gymnasium)"."

A number of the Ohio schoolmasters at the Columbus meeting told me that they has asked this Indiana teacher to come over and wake them up, because the campaign by her, arousing her town last May, had caused interest and enthusiasm throughout Indiana and Ohio. Schools are hanging loan collections in their corridors, inviting speakers to discuss the need of art in American life. Through Miss Robinson's clever and enthusiastic agitation, high schools are putting on dramatic representations of the awful vulgarity of decoration, ornamentation, and outfitting of many homes, and showing how thought of harmony and design is making interiors and exteriors more lovely and livable.

This magazine is committed to the encouragement of the refinement of American taste through the influence of publicschool teaching and coöperating societies. The example of the Chicago Board of Education in planning an art gallery in every new school building leads the New York World editorially to commend similar action to the attention of school boards everywhere. The World cites the Washington Irving High School, New York, the

high schools in Richmond, Indiana, and in Muncie, Indiana, and invites school people to learn of the collection made by Lorado Taft, sculptor; a collection suitable for installation in public schools in any city. The set recommended by Mr. Taft consists of plaster casts of masterpieces, the entire collection procurable at the maximum cost of $500. Mr. Taft says that there is scarcely a town in America unable to raise $500 and to supply its school with a permanent collection of the best in sculpture. The school architect should be encouraged to provide with proper natural and artificial light a cozy little gallery. The school should set about equipping it with proper exhibits. The result will be gratifying indeed.

Time to Begin Thinking about Spring Festivals. The athletic directors are busy preparing for the outdoor sports, but there is another feature of the glad spring time that is worth a great deal the outdoor May Festival of the schools. Among the old folkways that should not be lost is the dancing on the green. Omaha does it delightfully. As carefully as for the big concert, every detail of the May outing is planned and managed by the school folks. New York does the same. Spectators and laymen are sedulously kept segregated from the school people. Otherwise the experience of Pittsburgh and Chicago, long ago, when parents rose in protest against the mixing of politicians with their children, will lead to the abandonment of the entire project. As Superintendent Condon of Cincinnati reminds us, the aims of America include the pursuit of happiness. The schools are obligated to cherish the national aims. Happiness ranks along with justice and liberty as a paramount objective. We Hail Columbia as a happy Land. To plan and carefully manage a procession with banners to an open space with grass and trees, to put on a program of boys and girls dancing and winding the Maypole under the open sky, to devote an hour or so of an afternoon to

the beauty and grace of dance and song, is to contribute to the store of our generation's pleasant memories, and to help develop a happy people.

My Withers Unwrung.-Plutarch, he of "The Lives" has an essay on "The Art of Praising Living Men." It is a ticklish performance-very easy to slop over in it. You see it at its worst in a school meeting when a principal makes a prologue to his superintendent's address or a superintendent introduces the editor of an educational magazine. The situation is always funny. It is like the "barker" at a side show, using a strenuous psychology of suggestion to induce his listeners to feel they are going to get more than their money's worth.

I want to make a word sketch of John Withers. I am prejudiced. I knew him as head of the Saint Louis training school for teachers. Ben Blewett, Superintendent there, had the acumen to use Withers' daily experience and accumulated judgment by making him a member of the city board of superintendents. His double capacity led the Board of Education, when Blewett died, to select Withers as the head of the school system. New York University, when it lost Balliet, called Withers because of his possession of theory and practice. I look him up in an educational biography book I have, the contents of which were supplied by each school man who appears in it. I see many full-page descriptions of the lives of eminent educators of whom it is my misfortune never to have heard. I find a line and a half devoted to ten words telling me that John was "Superintendent, for '21 elected dean N. Y. U., St. Louis, Mo." (sic) It will hardly be disputed that there is much to be said in favor of a portrait on which the sitter puts no paint at all. Therefore I ask Milton Loomis of the Institute of Education, New York University, to tell me what reason he thinks I have which led me to desire to do John Withers in words. Loomis guessed pretty nearly right. He said: "For originating the St. Louis plan of training teachers in service. Those