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THE
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

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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

sure

American naval history. We are 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

tion of commerce, the churches, the clubs. The first experiment was a surprising success. Congratulations after the event made a stack 11 inches high, including letters from the Chief of Police, the Mayor, and the President of the School Board. You may want to try this in your town. If so, the plans of the Chicagoans for this year will help you. Here is the preliminary circular prepared by a committee of principals and teachers.

1. About October 1 the principal should arrange that every class, particularly the classes of pupils at the age most inclined to mischief, be given a series of lessons, making clear the source of the educational service-money from all the people, not merely from parents of children.

2. Demonstrate graphically and dramatically where the money comes from, showing that the owner of real estate, who pays the actual taxes, merely transmits what he receives from rental. Show how every citizen, when he spends any money, contributes toward the rental of stores, shops, etc., and is therefore a taxpayer.

3. Have the children show their appreciation of the fact that the sum contributed by their own families is considerably less than the actual cost of teaching for each pupil.

4. Have the pupils bring out their appreciation of their obligation to the city for this benefit.

5. Show the meaning of Roosevelt's "you come to school, not for your own advancement, but for the same reason that one enters the army: to serve your country."

6. Show how this service need not be a "deferred dividend," but that on Hallowe'en, now, while you are receiving, you have an opportunity to show your gratitude to your neighbors who are paying for your education.

7. Get the coöperation of local police officers. Ask them to notify you after Hallowe'en of the names of any offending children who are members of your school. Let the children know that you have made this request, and that you expect 100 per cent. conduct.

SO

8. Coöperate with neighborhood cieties for a good hearty Hallowe'en celebration for the children of their members.

9. Address early, as a composition exercise by the children, letters to parents, asking them to see that we have a well-mannered Hallowe'en, such as good citizens can approve. Many principals recommend a Hallowe'en Parents' meeting during the week of October 24 with explanation of plans by the pupil and a straight talk by teachers. and principals asking parental coöperation.

10. Organize a committee of teachers to think out suggestions for a good citizenship Hallowe'en. Bring it up at teachers' meeting and plan for systematic observance.

II. Suggest to parents that they with their children don the picturesque Hallowe'en

costumes.

12. Teachers this year were quite willing to make inquiries of business men and other citizens as to the effect of the teaching, and from the returns obtained much satisfaction and encouragement.

13. Many principals suggest a special pledge, "I promise to behave myself like a good citizen on Hallowe'en, and to interfere with the propriety, the comfort, of no one.'

14. Feature the credit due to the school in the conduct of every member.

15. A school committee might well meet the managers of the parochial and other schools, as these will be glad to coöperate.

16. Form a Hallowe'en committee of citizens and patrons of the school who will give publicity to your aims.

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17. Prepare subjects for short talks by children as "What I owe to Chicago,' "How I mean to show my obligation on Hallowe'en." "Why does the community. pay for my schooling?" "Who pays the taxes?" "What for?"

18. On Monday, the 31st, have a positive, encouraging, enthusiastic, confident "good-bye" talk to the children. Express your hope and confidence on their making a record.

19. On November I have the teachers obtain from the children reports of the success of the experiment.

Our Arrival at Respectability.-Mr. Webster used to employ "respectable" in its exact sense, "worthy of respect"; "admirable" means worth admiring. Our business is enhanced by an increase of the number of persons in it who are admired. We passed through a long period during which we were given an amount of contempt strangely at variance with a parallel bestowal of superlative exaltation on our business. For the first fifty years of the existence of the Nation education was lauded to the skies by Webster, by Clinton, by Jefferson, and by others of the most eminent Americans. Meantime the regard for the teacher was so low that some story writers sought to give piquancy to their tales by surprising the reader with a schoolmaster as hero. So frequently was the attempt made that the editor of Godey's Ladies' Book printed directions to his contributors to cease attempting it. It was too much of a strain on the readers' relief. Our first important treatise on teaching: Page's Theory and Practice devoted much attention to telling the teacher to bathe, to clean his nails, to wash his teeth, and to brush the dandruff off his clothes. Bardeen, who began to flourish thirty years ago, exhorted teachers often to gentility in the care of person. In 1891-you can estimate it as thirty-five years ago an admired gentlewoman took me to a school for teachers in Louisville, the city famed for beautiful women. I never saw a group of so uniformly unlovely girls; gawky, bovine, slovenly, depressing. But Miss Katie, typically Louisvillian, had been engaged to teach them grace. Four months ago I was. at a Louisville teachers' meeting. It was good to look at: style, animation, intelligence, refinement. Mr. Mitchell, of Life, when he was living had a dramatic simile: "The play was one dreary Kansas." I knew Kansas well thirty years back. It was drab and dismal enough. You ought to see it now; Topeka, Salina, Independence, with their rows of elms and maples, with their women's clubs, memorial halls, school houses, parks, and gardens. At the Philadelphia meeting

of our National Association there was a large stage box of the Academy of Music filled with Kansas women teachers. Call

it a garden or a conservatory. To enliven us they sang between two addresses, "Kansas, we are proud of you." It is surely reciprocal. They were a creditable sample. Last week I saw two thousand Kansas teachers assembled in the big teachers college which William Brandenburg manages in Pittsburg not far from the Missouri and Oklahoma lines. The pure skin, clear eyes, fine carriage, and radiant health of these young men and women are a joy. The lip stick and rouge puff haven't gained any face among them. "What do you say?" I asked of Winship, who has been looking at people in Boston and San Francisco and all the cities in between for fifty years. "Grace and beauty," he said, "grace and beauty. The backwoods have gone; the country has ceased to be countrified; the teacher has sloughed off schoolmarmery." To be taken blindfolded to the beautiful campus of this big college and then released is to tax you to guess whether you are in Boston, Poughkeepsie, Ithaca, or Baltimore. Brandenburg says an intelligent observer would immediately guess "Kansas" for "no other locality can show so many teachers just like other folks, only a little bit handsomer."

Here is a man who is directing a teachers college on the Emersonian theory that you learn as much from your companions as from your instructors. Accordingly, the college brings together those who will teach in country districts and those who will be of high-school faculties. The manual arts, the working of the mines, whatever local service can be profited by the Pittsburg equipment, is furnished with instruction not only for intending teachers but for men and women who do not intend to teach but who will make their living at the trades. Why not? For years the normal schools have been assailed for their narrowness, their isolation from life. For years intelligent leaders of Labor have argued the benefit to it and to brain workers secured by contact

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