THE FEDERAL COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION

THERE is little politics in the post of Federal Commissioner of Education. The fact that only six men have held it in the more than half century it has existed speaks well for its professional character. The salary is low-at present a half or a third of the amount paid city and state superintendents of schools. The office is quite without any power other than that due to the incumbent's personal and professional qualities. Yet a position that men of the stamp of Henry Barnard and William T. Harris in their day were proud to fill must have an appeal above and beyond the ordinary lure of public office. John J. Tigert, nominated by President Harding to succeed Dr. P. P. Claxton, may well feel that he has an opportunity given to few men in the field of education.

This opportunity is conspicuously greater because of Commissioner Claxton's ten years of service. There were beginnings of a better Federal leadership in education under Elmer Ellsworth Brown, particularly in higher education. But the expanded Bureau of Education as we know it today is the direct product of Dr. Claxton's efforts. When he came to the bureau, in 1911, Dr. Claxton found it still mainly a statistical bureau of the typical government sort. He made it a promotion agency, in the right sense of the word, for the best in education. Realizing that the bureau was not known as it should be, he travelled into every state in the Union carrying the message of better schools. He multiplied publication processes, so that, instead of the occasional formal document for which the bureau was known, shorter bulletins, leaflets, and circulars began to issue in a constant stream to city and county superintendents, high-school principals,

and college officials. A rural man himself, he made the rural school problem nationally known in a way that few others could have done and a large part of the recent rapid progress in this field must be credited to him.

A Southerner himself, Dr. Claxton was in a particularly favorable position to drive home the South's backwardness in education. Future historians of education in this country will probably not fail to note that within five years of the time the Bureau of Education, under Dr. Claxton's leadership, had begun its campaign for compulsory education laws in the South six of the Southern States that were without such laws had enacted them and six others with laws of only partial operation had made them statewide. The junior high school, the junior college, the longer school year, the cooperative plan, home gardening directed by the school-these are only a few of many movements to which he gave a permanently vital impress. Not all the things he advocated seem equally worthy, but the unprejudiced reader who looks today into the introduction Dr. Claxton wrote to his 1913 report will be struck by the fact that the program he laid down for education at that time has already been adopted to an amazing extent throughout the nation.

Professor Tigert, who succeeds Dr. Claxton, is comparatively unknown in education. He has youth and the right kind of training to his credit, however, and clearly if a change had to be made it was better to select a young man with his future to make rather than an older man whose achievements were behind him. The educational forces of the country will give the new commissioner every encouragement. The certainty that the federal government is shortly going into educational work with a far more ambitious program than ever before either through a Department of Education or a Department of Education and Welfare-lends special interest to any federal appointment in education. In this new development the commissioner of education has an opportunity and a responsibility that can hardly be overestimated.-New York Evening Post.

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND STATISTICS

THE MARKET FOR PROSPECTIVE HIGHSCHOOL TEACHERS

THIS investigation was instituted to indicate to prospective high-school teachers among students of the State College of Washington the positions that are likely to be open to them when they seek placement upon graduation. The results are offered here in the belief that the conditions revealed may not be peculiar to the state of Washington, and that they may indicate a condition existing in other states.

The State Superintendent's Office publishes bi-annually a "High-School Directory," which lists, among other things, the name of each high school, the names of the members of the

ers.

high schools for their instructional staffs, and, more especially, for inexperienced teachA second source of information lies in the calls for teachers received by the Appointments Committee of the Washington State College to July 1, for the school year 19201921, a tabulation of which is shown below. Tabulation has been effected to show the prevailing teaching combinations; the percentage of the whole number of high-school teachers who are teaching each combination; and the amount of experience, first, for high schools having ten or less than ten teachers, and second, for high schools having more than ten teachers. Also, the calls for teachers received by the Appointments Committee have been arranged to indicate the teaching combinations asked for by superintendents and other school officials.

for instance, 70 teachers (7.0 per cent.) teach no other subject; and where a teaching combination is found, one of the sciences is taught more frequently than anything else. There are, however, among 31 home economics teachers, 19 different three-field combinations.

Of the teachers in Washington high schools having an instructional staff of ten or fewer, approximately one ninth are teaching in four or more fields. For the most part such combinations are found in the schools which do

is interesting to note that the well-marked combinations are English and foreign language; science and mathematics; science and social science; and English and social science. A point not revealed by the table is that within these fields specialization is fairly complete. A foreign language teacher, for instance, more often instructs in Latin or French alone, and is less often called upon to teach both.

Perhaps among these schools instances may be found where subjects are being taught

not give four years of high-school work, although instances not infrequently occur in the larger schools of this group. In a twoteacher school, accredited for two years' work, the following combinations were found: ancient history, medieval and modern history, spelling, music, writing, botany, agriculture; and English, algebra, geometry, general science.

It is seen that a satisfactory state of affairs exists in the larger high schools. The number of sections and the array of subjects permit specialization on the part of the staff. It

9.3 per cent. 4.2 per cent.

without adequate college preparation; it is not unlikely, however, that assignments are more carefully made and that the proportion of teachers handling work for which they are unprepared is therefore less than in the case of the smaller high schools.

It will be noticed that the distribution of percentages in this table is approximately the same as that in Table I. The percentage of calls for teachers in a single field is slightly larger, but in all probability this would be offset when the schedules are assigned, for final adjustment often means that some

Percentage

12

teacher takes an extra subject or two. The large number of calls for science teachers is noticeable.

In one respect the graph is inaccurate. The failure to show the percentage of teachers having no experience will be noticed. Very few teachers were listed in the High-School Directory as having no experience; the amount of experience was omitted, or beginners were credited with a year's experience. The blank space on the base of the graph

high schools. The median years' experience for teachers in the group of smaller high schools is 3; for the teachers in the larger high schools, 8. From this and the data given in Table I. it is seen that the boy or girl attending the small high school is taught by teachers having in 50 per cent. of the cases little or no experience, and who are in 65 per cent. of the cases giving instruction in two or more fields. The smaller the high school, the worse conditions become.

shows the number of teachers listed in the Directory as having no experience and the number for whom the amount of experience was not given. It can not be stated with any degree of accuracy, therefore, how many were employed for the first time; it is also probable that many credited with two years' experience are teaching their second year.

The graph shows that the inexperienced teacher goes into the small high school, and that he remains there from two to five years before securing a position in one of the larger

The points with regard to experience derived from the graph are in accord with the placements made by the Appointments Committee. Very rarely is an inexperienced graduate of the Washington State College placed in one of the larger high schools. This statement could without doubt be made of the graduates of many other institutions. At the University of Washington 126 teachers were placed in the high schools of Washington for the school-year 1916-17. Of these, 81 per cent. went to high schools employing ten