SECRETARY PAYNE of the Interior Department has requested the Secretary of State to invite the governments of countries bordering on the Pacific ocean to appoint delegates to a Pan-Pacific Congress on education, to be held in Hawaii from August 11 to August 21, 1921. The congress would be called to carry out the purposes of an item in the legislative appropriation act for 1921. The countries to which invitations will be sent are: Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Siberia, Japan, China, French Cochin China, Siam, Dutch East Indies, Australia, New Zealand, the Federated Malay States, Borneo and the Philippine Islands.

A SURVEY is planned to devise means of meeting the financial emergency which faces the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh. Colonel Samuel H. Church, president of the board of trustees, states that $1,000,000 has been expended annually by the Institute of Technology, and $400,000 by the Carnegie Institute. The institutions no longer can be conducted on this income from the funds established by Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie Corporation which has been making up deficits thus far, will cooperate with the trustees in having the survey made. The commission includes: Harold H. Swift, of Swift & Co., Chicago, bank director and trustee of the University of Chicago; Dr. Frederick Ayer, Dean of the School of Engineering in the University of Akron and teacher of engineering in the University of Cincinnati, who will give advice in the technical departments: Dr. Samuel P. Capen, head of the United States Bureau of Education, and Dr. M. A. Bigelow, professor of biology and Director of the School of Prac tical Arts in Columbia University, who will review the plans for the education of women.

TRUSTEES of the Connecticut Agricultural College have voted to ask the incoming Staté Legislature to appropriate $625,000, of which $400,000 is wanted to erect a new science

building for the chemistry, botany, physics and bacteriological departments. Plans for the building call for a three-story brick and limestone structure, 40 by 180 feet. In addition to this special appropriation, the legislature will be asked to increase the regular state biennial appropriation from $150,000 to about $225,000, to help meet increased costs.

AMENDMENTS to the articles of incorporation of the Minnesota Educational Association were filed in the office of the secretary of state, December, 1920, by L. D. Coffman, president of the association and W. H. Shephard, secretary. The educational association was organized for the improvement of the art of teaching and the advancement of culture. The amendments provide that any person may be admitted to honorary membership by majority vote of members present, and provide that the management be placed under a board of seven directors, to be composed of the last president, the president, vice-president, and four directors to be elected by the membership. The amendments constitute a complete reorganization of the association.

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A LEGISLATIVE bill, which if approved by the Wisconsin State Board of Health and the State Board of Control, is to be submitted to the legislature this winter, provides for a bureau which shall exercise such duties as are necessary "for the proper care, education, protection, or reformation of dependent, neglected, or delinquent children." In each county of the state the director of the bureau is to appoint a committee to carry on the county aspects of the bureau's work. Other measures which are included in the bill are the care of children born of unmarried parents, the adoption of children, the status of adopted children, the annulment of adoption, and the importation of children.

ACCORDING to School Life the teacher situation in Nevada for the present year is improving. All schools, except those in a very few isolated districts, are supplied with teachers, and with better qualified teachers, in many cases, than it was possible to obtain last year. First among the causes for this outlook for

the schools is the material increase in salaries. In Esmeralda County, for example, the length of the session for all schools is 9.1 months, and the average annual salary of all teachers, town and rural, is $1,462.65, an increase of about 20 per cent. within a year. In the Elko County High School, at Elko, the increase in the salaries of the teachers is even more marked. This high school has an enrollment of 115 pupils and employs 9 full-time teachers besides the principal. For 1920-21 the average salary of 9 teachers is $2,161.10. If the salary of the principal is included, the average is $2,275. Carson City, Fallon, Winnemucca, Reno, Tonopah, Sparks, Ely, Las Vegas, Lincoln County High School, and many of the other schools throughout the state have materially raised the salaries of teachers. A revision of the state taxing system to provide an adequate school revenue by placing a proportionately greater part of the burden upon the state, will be one of the progressive acts that the state legislature will be asked to pass at its session this winter.

A STATEMENT has been issued by the director of information with a view to show what the government of Bombay has done and is doing for the cause of primary education ⚫ throughout the presidency. In the year 1900 the number of public primary schools in the presidency was 9,118, of trained teachers 5,895, and of pupils 435,716 boys and 12,788 girls. In 1910, there were 11,790 schools, 7,038 trained teachers, 580,927 boy pupils and 109,606 girls. In March, 1919, the number of schools was 15,126 with 10,411 trained teachers, 713,738 boy pupils and 182,052 girl pupils.

ACCORDING to press reports the China Association, representing people in Great Britain interested in Chinese affairs, is considering measures for securing the education of Chinese students in England. It has been noticed how much Chinese business is taken to America by Chinamen who have been educated in American universities. A Chinese diplomatist has pointed out that the presence of a large number of Chinese students in England would have farreaching influence on

trade between Great Britain and China. He mentioned, as an example of the results which have followed from the education of so many Chinese in the United States, that a Chinese engineer, who had received his training in engineering at the University of Chicago, shortly after his return to China placed an order for $1,500,000 with an American engineering firm. The natural tendency of Chinese engineers and administrators who have been trained in the United States, he said, is to go to the country which they know for equipment, railway material, bridges, mining machinery and a vast number of other requirements. A British authority in touch with China pointed out that if there are 4,500 Chinese students in the United States and only some 270 in England two causes are responsible. First, the United States government nearly twenty years ago remitted the indemnity paid it by China for the Boxer rebellion, on the understanding that the interest on the money be used in paying the expenses of Chinese students in the United States. There are some 500 Chinese students at present in receipt of grants from this fund. Second, in the United States there is nothing to prevent a poor student from working during the vacations and thus supporting himself. In England the cost of maintenance for a poor man during the vacations is very serious.

THE Conferences in English and comparative literature in the Columbia University summer session will deal with American Literature To-day," "Scholarship and Literature" and "Education." Robert Frost, poet, of Amherst, Mass.; Augustus Thomas, the playwright, New York; Paul Elmer More, author, of Princeton; Ellery Sedgwick, of Boston, editor of the Atlantic Monthly; William Allen White, editor, Emporia, Kans., and Brander Matthews, professor of dramatic literature at Columbia, will participate in the conferences on 66 American Literature Today." The scholarship and literature conferences will be held by Ashley H. Thorndike, professor at Columbia, who will discuss literature in the university; Professor W. P. Trent,

of Columbia, who will talk on literature and history; John L. Lowes, of Washington University, St. Louis, who will lecture on the study of the middle ages; Professor George P. Krapp, of Columbia, linguistic scholarship and literature; Professor Wilbur L. Cross, of Yale, biographical methods; Frank W. Chandler, Ropes professor of comparative literature of the University of Cincinnati, scholarship and criticism; Professor Jefferson B. Fletcher, of Columbia, comparative literature, and Professor James W. Bright, of Johns Hopkins. author of texts on the English language, American scholarship. Conferences on education will include a lecture on literature in the schools by Professor Franklin T. Baker, of Teachers College, Columbia; composition and rhetoric by Professor Charles S. Baldwin, of Barnard College, Columbia; teaching the present in literature by Frank Aydelotte, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and American representative on the Rhodes scholarship fund; English and the fine arts by Professor John Erskine, of Columbia, and tests of appreciation by Allan Abbott, of Teachers College, Columbia. The normal school will also be discussed.

THAT forestry is of interest to city dwellers, as well as to the forest owners, is evidenced by the demand from Greater New York. In the course of a week recently twenty-six illustrated lectures on forestry, especially as it relates to New York City, were given at the high schools and some of the public schools in the boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn and Richmond, under the auspices of the Board of Education. Dean Franklin Moon, of the New York State College of Forestry, and Captain William A. McDonald, of the same institution, were the speakers. These authorities stressed the fact that residents of Greater New York should be as deeply interested in forest conservation and fire protection as any land owner of the Adirondacks; that forest fires not only mean burned timber, destroyed game haunts, and damaged trout streams. They mean impaired watersheds. Unless all signs fail, the extension of the

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Catskill Aqueduct to the Adirondack watersheds is the matter of a few years, consequently a forest fire is an item of interest to every resident of Manhattan. The high-school boys and girls during this week were taught by means of lantern slides and moving picture film that they have a Istake" in the forest program of New York state, aside from the possible value of the Forest Preserve in adding to the state income. During the present lecture season the Syracuse foresters will deliver nearly 400 illustrated lectures on forestry reaching practically every county in the state.

FOLLOWING the investigations made by Professor S. C. Prescott, instructor in industrial biology of the department of biology and public health of the Institute of Technology, who has just returned from Seattle, where he studied the work of the College of Fisheries of the University of Washington, it has been announced that the administrative committee of the institute is considering the inclusion of a course in the scientific problems of fish culture and problems of the fisheries. Establishment of a college of fisheries similar to that of the University of Washington has also been suggested to Harvard University, by leading men in the fishing industry at Boston.

SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY, Dallas, Texas, completed in November, a campaign to raise $1,000,000 for endowment purposes. More than two thirds of the total sum was subscribed by friends of the university, the General Education Board of New York giving $333,333.33 on the fund. Three gifts of $50,000 each were made in this endowment campaign, one for the chair of French, one for the department of physics and one for the chair of geology. Mr. S. I. Munger, of Dallas, endowed the physics chair which is now occupied by Dr. R. S. Hyer, president emeritus of the university. W. B. Hamilton, of Wichita Falls, established the W. B. Hamilton professorship in geology which is held by Dr. Ellis W. Shuler, who received his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1915. The French chair was endowed by Mrs. S. I. Munger, of Dallas.

DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE

TEACHER SUBSTITUTES AND FLYING
SQUADRONS

TO THE EDITOR OF SCHOOL AND SOCIETY: At the Cleveland School of Education the students in their first semester in the normal department visit various types of schools, industries, commercial centers, social and civic centers as a part of a course entitled "educational guidance." When these students were making their reports upon such visits of last term a number of them noted a very unique method which a certain industry of Cleveland employs in providing substitutes for workmen who fail to show up at a given time for a given job.

The substitute in this industry is supplied by the "Flying Squadron" which is a group of workmen who not only are highly trained for one position but who are skilled for many or all positions of one or several departments. They are, moreover, individuals who have distinguished themselves as readily adaptable to an emergency. Hence this Flying Squadron is the pick of the personnel of that industry in virtue of which fact they receive relatively the highest pay.

During the further report by these students some one suggested that this whole mechanism of the "Flying Squadron" (which plan also is said to be in operation by the Goodrich Tire Industry and reputed to give rare success) would be desirable in the public school in lieu of the now almost universal mode of providing teacher substitutes.

The present theory and practise of substitutes is that almost any one can fill the place for the usual short time during which that place is vacant. This substitute receives relatively small pay and consequently can not be expected to be of a high qualification. Such a substitute, often with no chance for preparation, is put now here, now there, to take the place of the best skilled regular teacher. The children soon discover the usual inferiority and respond accordingly. When the regular teacher returns, not always physically fit to return, she finds the class demoralized and consequently her task doubly heavy. She has suffered a great loss, the class has suffered and

the substitute has found her experience very unsatisfactory.

All other things being equal that teacher who substitutes, in order really to carry on the class successfully, must, it seems, be stronger than the teacher for whom she substitutes.

Why should not the administrator take a lesson from the modern industry and develop the "Flying Squadron" in his teaching personnel? GARRY C. MYERS

CLEVELAND SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

INNOVATIONS IN TEACHER TRAINING TO THE EDITOR OF SCHOOL AND SOCIETY: One of the most acute problems which confronts normal schools is that of insuring adequate knowledge of the common branches on the part of those who graduate. In the State Normal School at Bellingham, Washington, this problem is being solved in a new way. Standardized tests in common branches are being given to all its students. It is expected that they will meet as a minimum the standard required for the eighth grade. After the policy has become well established, these standards will be gradually raised.

The passing of standardized tests is made a condition of admission to courses in special methods and to practise teaching. Also, it is a prerequisite for any certificate issued by the school. Those who fail in any standardized test must take that subject in class. They are assigned to this review class without increasing the number of hours per week in their regular schedule of work. While they must earn a credit in this course, this credit does not count toward graduation. Thus, a knowledge of the common branches is made compulsory for progress in the normal-school course, and lack of such knowledge lengthens the time taken to complete the course.

In addition to this forward step, all students are required to undergo a physical examination and they must take such remedial steps as may be necessary to correct physical defects and improve their health. After such steps have been taken, they are given another examination. The results of the physical examination and their health record are put on

file in the office of the appointment bureau. Mental tests are given to all students, and their rating, likewise, is put on file in the office of the appointment bureau. While physical and mental ratings are not at the present time made public, nor given to those who seek teachers, they are a very important aid to the bureau in making intelligent recommendations. IRVING E. MILLER

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, BELLINGHAM, WASH.

QUOTATIONS

CITIES AT PLAY

A NUMBER of cities have made definite advances in the matter of recreation during the past year, indicative of the general trend throughout the country. Detroit has authorized a bond issue of $10,000,000 for the purchase of special parks including a number of large playgrounds, and possibly a public golf course. Portland Ore., has voted a bond issue of $500,000 for the purchase of sites for playgrounds. Memphis, Tenn., Milwaukee, Wis., Newton, Mass., and Sacramento, Cal., among other cities, have doubled their appropriations for municipal recreation. Paterson, N. J., is an illustration of the interest taken by municipalities in this field. In the industrial city with its congested areas, Dr. L. R. Burnett, supervisor of school hygiene, is laying plans to reach, if possible, the twenty-five public-school districts in order to provide an adequate recreational system for them. It is estimated that in this city there should be at least one playground for every 1,000 children as represented by the school districts. It has been Dr. Burnett's experience that the little children who live in crowded districts are not permitted to go over a quarter of a mile to a playground. This, therefore, means that vacant play spaces contingent to residential districts must be equipped. In Paterson, through an agreement of the Board of Education and the Board of Recreation made in 1919, the superintendent of playgrounds is also the supervisor of school hygiene, which department covers the work of medical in

spectors, nurses, physical directors and general supervision of school athletics. This combination is a recognition of the close association of recreational activities and physical education in the promotion of hygiene.

The year book just compiled by the Playground and Recreation Association of America states that 465 cities report that playgrounds and recreational centers are being conducted under paid leadership. The most encouraging increase from the point of view of the effectiveness and permanency of the work lies in the 10,218 play leaders employed as against 8,043 in 1919, or an increase of 27 per cent. There has been also an increase of 38 per cent. in the number of workers employed during the entire year, 2,011 now being retained on this basis. This is indicative of growing appreciation on the part of municipalities of the importance of making facilities for recreation function not only during the summer months but throughout the entire year. There has also been a considerable growth in the number of neighborhood and community centers open at night. One hundred and fifty-one cities report an attendance of 437,683 at their winter centers, an increase of more than 124 per cent. over the attendance in 1919.

Twenty-five cities have been benefited by gifts from public spirited citizens of either land or money to be used for playground purposes. As instances of this Columbus, O., has been made the recipient of forty acres of land to be developed as a model outdoor center and play field; Kalamazoo, Mich., has been given seventeen acres of land located in the center of the city for playground purposes; Sacramento has been given a memorial playground, and the recreational facilities of Scranton, Pa., are largely increased through a private gift; Newburgh, N. Y., has been presented with a municipal golf course.

This growth in the movement is a recognition that the supervised playground is as much a part of the municipal machinery as the policing of the street, the furnishing of adequate protection against fires, or the