American Notes-Editorial

We note in the Wisconsin Educational News Bulletin the following expression of opinion about Vocational Education, by State Superintendent C. P. Cary, who is one of the leading educators in the West. His estimate seems to us a discerning and just one.

"Vocational education has received a new impetus all over the country as a result of the war. It is a fact that has often been remarked upon that education has a tendency toward a pendulum-like movement, back and forth, rather than a tendency toward progress in a straight line. This pendulum movement is due to the fact that things progress in a certain direction until they are overdone and then we have the backward swing. While vocational and industrial education in proper proportions is good, an excess is not good. It would seem highly probable in the nature of the case, that the schools, the country over, will in the next few years go to extremes in vocational education and thus necessitate a backward swing of the pendulum."

Three educational measures of unusual significance were passed by the New York State Legislature of 1919. These are: a compulsory continuation-school law, to go into effect in 1920; an illiteracy bill, dividing the State into zones for the purpose of eliminating adult illiteracy; and the salary bill, increasing the pay of teachers of the entire State.

With regard to the salary bill, Commissioner Finley says:

"The most significant and far-reaching of these three, and, in fact, of all the laws passed this year, is the act which provides for increased salaries to the 53,000 teachers of the State. It was passed by the Assembly April 19; it was signed by the Governor May 19; it was the last of the bills approved by the Governor; it bore the printed number 1919; and is the last chapter in the laws of 1919, but it is unquestionably the first in importance, so far as the future of this State is concerned.

"This should be the beginning of a new era for our schools.

"When we open the doors of schoolhouses of this State next fall, it will be to a greater opportunity for service than we have had before."

The passing of Andrew Carnegie brings to mind the fact that he had been for years an ardent advocate of world standardization in weights and measures through the adoption of metric units.

Andrew Carnegie was a member of the Metric Committee of the National American Association of Manufacturers, which strongly urged metric standardization. At the time the committee met he made the following statement:

"The metric system of weights and measures is one of the steps forward that the Anglo-Saxon race is bound to take sooner or later. Our present weights and measures, inherited from Britain, are unworthy an intelligent nation today. The advantage America possesses over Britain in the decimal dollar system as compared with their pounds, shillings and pence, would be fully equalled by the adoption of a metric system of weights and measures."

Carnegie believed that world standardization of weights and measures would aid greatly not only the cause of world trade, but also that of world peace. On another occasion he said: "The old weights. and measures are a discredit to us. We shall inevitably adopt meterliter-gram, if for no other reason than as an aid to peace; but it would enormously aid our world trade."

The following announcement is authorized by the General Education Board:

The General Education Board has decided to extend in the South its field of co-operative work in secondary and rural education, making its appropriation this year sufficient to include work in Texas and to extend its work in Tennessee and South Carolina. For some time the Board has been co-operating with educational agencies in this field in the following states: White Schools-Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Colored Schools-Maryland. The appropriation this year will permit the employment in Texas of a field agent in the negro rural schools, and the appropriation for South Carolina will enable the State to put a second rural school inspector in the field. The total appropriation amounts to $188,440.

The following is also authorized by the General Education Board: The General Education Board has appropriated $16,000 for the use of the National Committee on Mathematical Requirments, appointed by the National Mathematical Association of America, for the purpose of undertaking a study looking to improvements in the mathematical curriculum of the secondary schools of the country. Mathematicians, as well as educators in general, have in recent years

criticized the prevailing high school work in mathematics on the ground that much of the material is of little practical value, and on the further ground that the high school curriculum in mathematics takes too little account of modern developments in this science.

The American Mathematical Association is made up of the leading professors and teachers of mathematics in American colleges and universities. It has appointed, to conduct the inquiry, a committee composed of four university professors of mathematics and four secondary school teachers of mathematics. Having no funds this body applied to the General Education Board for assistance. The board itself will not take any part in the study nor make recommendations. The college and university men on the committee are: Prof. Crathorne, University of Illinois; Prof. Moore, University of Cincinnati; Prof. Moore, University of Chicago; Prof. Smith, Columbia University; Prof. Tyler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Prof. Young of Dartmouth College. The secondary school representatives are: Miss Blair, Horace Mann School, New York; Prof. Evans, Charlestown High School, Boston; Professors Fobert and Crane, Technical High School, Chicago, and Prof. Schorling, the Lincoln School, New York. Professors Young and Fobert will devote their entire time to the work for a year or more.

The Savings Division of the United States Treasury Department has made the following appeal to the teachers of the country:

"What response are the teachers of America going to make to the appeal of President Wilson to aid reduction of the high cost of living? That is a question every teacher should ask at the reopening of the schools. The President has placed the situation squarely before the public. He has declared that if we fail to accomplish the first tasks of peace it will mean national disaster. 'We are face to face with a situation,' he says, 'which is more likely to affect the happiness and prosperity, and even the life of our people, than the war itself. An admirable spirit of self-sacrifice, of patriotic devotion and of community action guided and inspired us while the fighting was on. We shall need all these now and need them in a heightened degree, if we are to accomplish the first tasks of peace. They are more difficult than the tasks of war, more complex, less easily understood, and require more intelligence, patience and sobriety. We mobilized our man power for fighting; let us now mobilize our consciences for the reconstruction. The primary step is to increase production and facilitate transportation, so as to make up for the destruction wrought by war, the terrible scarcities it created, and so as to relieve our people

of the cruel burden of high prices. Only by keeping the cost of production on its present level, by increasing production and by rigid economy and saving on the part of the people, can we hope for large decreases in the burdensome cost of living which now weights us down.' The teachers of America are in close touch with the households of America, where economy and saving must start. Their instruction is the wedge which will open the doors of those households to thrift. Through the children in their charge, they can impress on their communities the need and means for saving, the principles of wise buying and care for what is bought and advantages of sound and profitable investment. Large numbers of the teachers of the country already are pledged to co-operation with the savings campaign of the government conducted by the Savings Division of the Treasury Department through issue and sale of War Savings Stamps, Thrift Stamps and Savings Certificates. It is a patriotic opportunity and a patriotic duty for the teachers to press that campaign and the investment in those securities with renewed vigor to meet and overcome the present crisis."

At a recent public meeting in Milwaukee, Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford presiding, a committee was appointed to promote successful legislative action in the adoption of the Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The committee issues the following suggestion to teachers and other educators:

"Were there no other reason for the adoption of the Woman Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by the State Legislatures, the schools would furnish all sufficient reason. The civilized world recognizes, as never before, the significance of healty, educated, virtuous, loyal children. It is recognized, as never before, that there is no other organized way to promote the highest efficiency of children than through a public school system abundantly provided with the means of furnishing desirable school buildings and grounds, ample equipment for the best service, skillful, loyal and worthy teachers. This necessitates sufficient public moneys and the elimination of partisanship in school affairs--municipal, state and federal. This requires active participation in all public affairs of women whose knowledge of children is most intimate and whose devotion to them is demonstrated by innumerable sacrifices. Any teacher or other educator, and any lover of his country who neglects to make the utmost effort to secure favorable legislative action in the constitutional amendment providing suffrage for women would seem recreant to a sacred duty to country and to humanity."

The Editor is particularly impressed with the pedagogical and common-sense wisdom of the several headings under which Hon. Calvin N. Kendall, Commissioner of Education for New Jersey, has addressed the superintendents and supervising principals, on the one hand, and the teachers on the other hand, as the schools take up their work for another year. He calls his suggestion to the superintendents and supervising principals "Their Ten Commandments for Usefulness and Service." We believe that our readers will be pleased to have us reproduce these in this department of EDUCATION. Here are the first five; the other five will appear in the November number.

1. I realize that I am the chief representative of education in the community. Upon my character and efforts, therefore, more than upon those of any other individual, the worth of the schools depends. I will endeavor not only to be the leader of the teaching body, but to be the educational leader of the community as well.

While my efforts will be chiefly directed to the making of good schools for the children, I will not be unmindful of my duty to educate public opinion, so that public conception of education may be enlarged. In my personal relations with individuals I will be well mannered and gracious.

I am the representative of education. I must not forget it.

2. The modern superintendent of schools is the social engineer of the community.

He is the social engineer because he encourages enterprises for the promotion of various agencies for human welfare. Among these are movements that were practically unknown to superintendents of a generation ago-extension lectures for teachers and the town, parentteacher associations, community forums, home gardens, playgrounds, Americanization, boy scouts, swimming pools, sports, and boys' and girls' clubs.

I will also belong to and be an active participant in organizations for the welfare of the community, such as rotary clubs, chambers of commerce and the like.

I will be a real, public-spirited citizen.

The schools need the co-operation and support, moral and financial, of men and women of the community. The public should be enlightened about their schools; their purposes and ideals; their processes and accomplishments. I will employ all legitimate means to make known their work. Newspapers, as a rule, are ready to print school news. Use should be made of this readiness.

I will encourage exhibits of the children's work. I will do my best to secure the annual observance of Educational Sunday in October, and Visit-the-Schools Week in February.