THE PLAYGROUND ATTENDANCE

BY DR. H. S. CURTIS

One of the chief ways of estimating the success of the playgrounds everywhere is the attendance of the children. This is right, because the attendance is voluntary and the children who stay away do not receive the benefit. If it is found that they are not coming to any playground, it must be suspected that it is not offering much that appeals to them. The director and his method of organizing the activities is one of the largest elements in securing the attendance, but there are also several other very important considerations. A playground with ample equipment will usually have a larger attendance than one that is insufficiently equipped Shade during the hot weather is necessary. But one of the largest factors is the time during which the playground is kept open, as the greater numbers during the summer at least will always come between the hours of five and nine o'clock in the evening, if the playground is open during these hours.

Very naturally the older children will come a longer distance than the smaller children, but in a study in lower New York it was found that ninety per cent. of all the children came only one block, while in Chicago eighty-nine and a fraction per cent. came a half mile or less. A careful study always shows that the little children seldom come more than a quarter of a mile, and most of them usually a much shorter distance. However, different features have a different range and the swimming pool may draw the children as much as two miles. The distance which they come and the time which they stay offer a fair measure of the attractiveness of the playground.

The uninitiated usually think that if the playgrounds are started by the city the children will come there and remain during the time when they are not in school. But, in actual fact, the children seldom remain more than an hour or an hour and a half, and the average stay is probably not much more than an hour. Children will always play on the streets as much or more than they do on the playground, and the playground that does not reform the street play is doing only half of its job.

The playground is the most democratic place on earth, but it is not absolutely democratic. It is necessary to set certain standards of cleanliness and general appearance, and whatever standards are set will exclude the extremes. If the children are allowed to come filthy every morning, the children from the better families will not come. If the children are required to come neat and clean every morning, the ragamuffin will stay away.

Under existing conditions every effort must be made to make the playground so attractive that the children will wish to come. Accounts of various athletic and festival events must be run in the papers and pictures of the various activities should be shown. The director should get in close touch with the schools and organize

teams there, and tie the playground up to every institution for children that there is in the city. He will have to rack his brains constantly for ways of making it attractive.

A LIBERTY BOND AND THE CLASS OF 1917*

BY M. W. MURRAY

Vocational High School, Newton, Mass.

There are at least three things which all good citizens should stand ready to do for their country at a time like this: Give their money, so far as they are able, render any service within their power and offer their lives if need be.

The senior class of this school has spent practically all its funds for the care of a fatherless French child for a year and the purchase of a Liberty Bond. They have as a class shown themselves ready to give up most of the usual graduation pleasures for the truly greater one of helping others, and, so far as they were financially able, their country. The amount represented by this bond is small, but the spirit back of the purchase means more to the future of the country than many much larger sums. The United States has money in abundance. has money in abundance. The financing of this war for liberty is the least of our country's difficulties. More than money, the country needs men and women trained and willing to render all kinds of service willingly, unselfishly and with no thought of personal sacrifice or gain.

It is not a case of doing what we as individuals would like to do. It is a case of rendering the service when and in the way in which we are requested to render it. It is not a case of knitting mufflers because we may like to knit scarfs or mufflers, but it is a case of knitting socks if socks are the things which are called for. It is not a case of working for this or that organization or group, or with a given individual; it is a case of rising above petty jealousies and prejudices and of serving our common country. The good player on the ball team is the fellow who works with the team. Good citizens at a time like this are the men and women who, while working with their own group, remember that their group or class does not count unless it works in harmony with similar bodies for the same end. This is not the time to criticize those people who are charged with the responsibility of getting an almost overwhelming piece of work done. It is a time, if there ever was one, when everyone should take hold and help. We may not have voted for President Wilson, but he is the President of the United States and he is just as truly our President as if we helped to elect him. It is the duty of everyone of us not only to stand loyally by the President,, but every other national, state and local official who is trying to get things done, usually under handicaps of which the public knows little. This is not a case of helping England or even France and Belgium. It is a case of the United States again fighting and winning another war for liberty and justice.

A letter to the graduating class, 1917, by the principal,

The country is faced with a tremendous task in raising and drilling an army. It is faced with an even greater task of equipping and maintaining this army. Those who can render special service along technical and mechanical lines are in demand as never before. The country will soon come to realize what these schools stand for and what they can do.

We hear of such items as raising ten thousand men for the aviation corps and building ten thousand aeroplanes, but we are only just beginning to realize that we shall need from ninety to two hundred thousand mechanicians and technical experts to maintain this fleet. For every motor truck which the government operates and for every man trained to operate it, the government will have to have three or more mechanical experts to maintain it. The country needs an army of inspectors for mechanical lines if it is to produce the necessary equipment and machines needed for the front. The government in Washington fully realizes the great need for this service, and the President has just written a letter calling upon all vocational schools to keep in operation during the summer, and stand ready to co-operate with the government in furnishing and training men who will produce and maintain machines for the army at the front.

All of these things will go for nothing if we do not raise and conserve our food supply, and if we can all be thoroughly aware of these needs, the country will have little to fear. The Newton schools are doing their part. The country is short of farm hands, who have been attracted to the city by the large wages. The three Newton high schools have nearly one hundred boys on farms at the present time. There was grave doubt as to whether or not high school boys would work at this kind of labor, but I have yet to hear a single complaint from the farmers who have been employing these boys, and we now have call for boys whom we cannot furnish. At least thirty-five boys will be needed for a considerable part of the time between now and October 1.

Most of the boys of this class, 82%, have already found places; two have worked the greater portion of the year; all of them are doing productive work of some kind. One is an inspector of munitions and one is helping to build ships.

The girls and teachers in the Household Arts Department have been giving their services and plan to conduct classes between now and the time school opens in the fall for women and girls who wish to learn the science and art of cookery and the preservation of food. This department is operating thirteen different classes in canning and economical cookery for the women of the city. The rooms have been open for Special Aid and Red Cross work, more than twelve hundred garments being cut in the school; the girls have made four dozen pajamas, sixty-two comfort bags, two dozen tray cloths for the Red Cross Society, sixty mattresses and ninety sheets for the boys' agricultural camps, and have set a good example in economy. by designing and making their own graduation. gowns at an average cost of $3.30.

We can hopefully look forward to this class's shouldering the responsibility which will be put upon it in the future and believe that each one will do his best in whatever place he is called upon to fill.

MEETING WAR EMERGENCY

To meet the emergency created by national con-scription and the calling to the colors of many thousands of bookkeepers, clerks and other clerical em-ployees, as well as to provide at once a large number of such employees fitted to do clerical work in the government service, it was recently announced a war emergency course in bookkeeping and office practice has been arranged to be given at the Municipal Building and at the City College, under the auspices of the College of the City of New York and the Mayor's Council of Defence.

It is announced that Felix M. Warburg, of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, has accepted the honorary chairmanship of the sub-committee in charge of the course and that those who will be enrolled will include men of non-draft age, as well as women who wish to render service in place of those called to offer their lives in defence of the nation.

For the first time in the educational history of the city, the educational functions of the city will be thrown open, not only to residents of New York, but to all American citizens, and it is expected that many hundreds of men and women will come from distant parts of the country to take advantage of the course which will be given complete in nine lectures. The total time to be consumed in the whole course will be but nine hours, and it is stated that the essential knowledge required to fill the places made vacant through the war, can be imparted in this incredibly short time.

There have also been invited to the course, representatives of other municipalities, who will represent their communities and after observing the work done, will be expected to return to their cities and there continue the work by courses in other cities.

Miss Harriet B. Lowenstein, one of the five women certified public accountants in New York state and a doctor of law, and Dr. Joseph J. Klein, certified public accountant, will conduct the course. The lectures will be of but one hour duration and will be held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the entire course covering a period of three weeks. The lectures will be held in the great hall of the Collegeof the City of New York in the morning and in the Municipal Building in the late afternoon or early evening.

Miss Lowenstein and Dr. Klein, as the result of extensive experimentation, have evolved a system of instruction whereby men and women of average intelligence may be trained within the brief period mentioned, to take the places of those who enter upon military service.

In planning the course, the fact that the service required is of an emergency nature has been given full weight and essentials only will be dwelt upon, the lectures being confined to those features of bookkeeping and office practice which are absolutely prerequisites for the proper conduct of the modern office.

Applications to enroll for the course, instruction in which is absolutely free, should be made immediately to Professor Frederick B. Robinson, director

of the summer session, College of the City of New York, 139th Street and Convent Avenue, New York city. The dates for the course will be announced shortly.

WISCONSIN'S DEPARTURE

Wisconsin school boards now have the power to exchange Wisconsin teachers for a year with teachers of other states. They probably have always had it, but the laws of 1917 confer it upon them in specific terms.

If there is anybody who should travel, who needs to know all sorts of people and all sorts of places, who cannot afford to be provincial, it is the teacher. Upon her outlook and point of view depend the outlook and point of view of twenty to forty young people. Upon her sympathy and understanding of the great problems outside her little community depend the sympathy and understanding of twenty to forty young minds.

Wisconsin legislators have tried to make it easy for her to widen her outlook. She can leave for a year without risking the loss of her position at home; she can even enlist the aid of her school board in securing a temporary position elesewhere. She can study new conditions and new people while supporting herself by means of the work for which she has prepared herself. She does not have to be rich enough to afford a year's vacation in order to improve herself as a teacher; she can do it at the same time that she is teaching. While she is doing it, she need not worry about her position the next year, for she knows her place will be waiting back home.

Colorado has had such a law for two years. School boards of most states probably have the power to make exchanges without any specific law. However that may be teachers have not demanded the privilege. Without their demand the law in the statute books will do no good. The value of the law to the states will depend entirely upon the extent to which the teachers avail themselves of its privileges.

J. W. M. Turner.

CHILDREN'S PLAY-A PATRIOTIC CALL "Public provision for recreation is not a luxury to be cut off but a necessity to be conserved." Miss Julia C. Lathrop, chief of the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor, in discussing the report on "Facilities for Children's Play in the District of Columbia," which has just been issued by the Bureau, said:

"An English authority has lately pointed out the demoralization to boys and girls caused by the breaking-down of clubs and the withdrawal to the army of recreation leaders, and he has traced much of the increase in juvenile delinquency in England to the chaos in recreation activities which has prevailed since the

war.

SALUTE TO THE FLAG

Editor Journal of Education:— Dear Sir: Referring to a little statement in a recent number of the Journal about the "Salute to the Flag" and the inquiry made by W. E., will state that on page No. 68 of the publication called "The American Flag," issued by the Educational Department of the State of New York in Albany, there is this statement: "The American Flag Association was organized in New York City in 1897. This Association has already circulated widely its suggested salute to the flag for schools. This salute is not prescribed by the Education Department but is printed below for the information of school officers and teachers and its use is recommended." This publication was issued 1910. The pledge is as follows:

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." The military salute is then given to the flag, which is brought forward to the platform, after which the class sings "America." It is stated that this association was formed in 1897, but my wife, whom you remember was a teacher for several years in the Boston schools, states that this same pledge of allegiance was used in the public schools in Boston several years before this association was formed, therefore, in all probability it was used and authorized in the Boston schools as early as 1892 or 1893. This fact, however, can easily be obtained from the Boston school department and perhaps they can give you the authority from which it was derived. I was told on very good authority that it was originated by the Youth's Companion Company of Boston about the time of the world's fair in Chicago. In regard to the inquirer's question about the meaning and significance of "Indivisible"; will say, that any first-class dictionary, such as Webster's unabridged, gives the meaning of the word as-"not capable of being divided, separated or broken, not separable into parts." Respectfully,

Jersey City.

George Howard Reed.

Editor Journal of Education:

Dear Sir: Referring to the letter of W. E. in your issue of June 28 inquiring as to the origin of the "Salute to the Flag," I write to say that the Watchman-Examiner of June 21 quotes a letter from the editors of the Youth's Companion to the librarian of the public library of Malden, Mass., which states that James B. Upham of Malden wrote the "Salute to the Flag" in collaboration with the editors of the Youth's Companion in connection with a campaign to place the American flag on every schoolhouse in the United States, as a part of the ceremony to be observed by school children. "When the Columbus anniversary came in October, 1892, it was the Companion's idea that the flag should be saluted simultaneously by all the school children in the United States. That idea was carried out and the 'Salute to the Flag' was used."

FOUNDERS OF OUR COUNTRY. For Fourth Grade. By Fanny E. Coe, Boston Normal School. Cloth. Illustrated. Price, 50 cents.

MAKERS OF THE NATION. For Fifth Grade. By Fanny E. Coe. Cloth. Price, 56 cents.

New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book Company.

These books are skilfully graded for fourth and fifth school year pupils respectively. Few things in education are as difficult as to find a book that a fourth grade or fifth grade boy will read with a relish, but Miss Coe has made a book for each grade that the boys of the grade will enjoy as much as a girl ever liked "Little Women." The trouble with nearly every book intended for a boy of the fourth or fifth grade is that it is childish. No boy will ever like a book that only boys like.

A book for a boy in these grades must be a book that a man likes. This is the great problem for the reading for a boy of the fourth and fifth grade. It must be a book that boys will like, but that not boys alone will like, that not men alone will like. Miss Coe has solved the problem in "Founders of Our Country" and "Makers of the Nation," for she has books that both boys and men like with equal devotion and will be read with equal relish. We can vouch for the manly devotion, and thousands of boys will testify to boyish relish. There is not a chapter in either book that I do not want to read because in every one that I have read, and I have read several chapters in each book, I have had an added interest in the story, something vital that I had either never read, or having read had absolutely forgotten. This is as true in the case of Columbus and William Penn as of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, as of cattle kings and coal barons.

THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE—A PSYCHOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS. By William Henry Pyle, professor of educational psychology, University of Missouri. Boston, New York, Chicago: Silver, Burdett & Co 238 pp. Price, $1.25.

This is one of the best elementary textbooks published for beginners and for review purposes of those who need to get in touch with the facts and spirit of behavioristic psychology. More and more, education is discriminating sharply between nature and human nature, and with equal keenness between the theoristic and behavioristic study of human nature.

It is too much to ask the traditional teacher of psychology, or rather, the teacher of traditional psychology, to use this as a basal text, but he must be either scholastically petrified or crystallized who will not advise his students to read with care and an open mind a book like this. Teachers who are a bit rusty or scholastically dull in psychology should certainly read a book like this.

It is useless to argue with those already intensified in their devotion to static psychology, but all others should at least know and appreciate dynamic psychology, and we have seen no text at once more intelligently thought out, more intelligibly stated, or more interestingly written than is this book by Professor Pyle.

By

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT VOCATION. Holmes W. Merton. New York City: Funk and Wagnails Company. 302 pp. Price, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.62.

This is a book intended to aid young people in the choice of a vocation and parents and teachers in wisely advising regarding a vocation for a young person.

Over 1.400 occupations, trades and professions are listed with the probabilities and ordinary requirements for success in each.

The book is wide in its range of advice and direct in recommendations where directness is at all feasible.

THOSE WEARING GLASSES

-or who use their Eyes constantly -will find

great relief in Murine applications. In the School Room Eyes are often Irritated by Chalk Dust, and Eye Strain induced by faulty systems of Lighting. Apply Murine to School Children's Eyes to Restore Normal Conditions. Murine does not smart - is soothing in its action. MURINE EYE REMEDY CO., Chicago, Sends Book of Eye Free on request. Your Druggist supplies you with Murine.

ENGLISH FOR BEGINNERS: CONVERSATION READERS AND LANGUAGE BOOK FOR FOREIGNERS AND OTHER BEGINNERS. Book One and Book Two. By Annie Fisher and Arthur Deerin Call. Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co. Cloth. Only by examining with much care can anyone understand how completely the school books of today differ from those of a few years ago.

In Book One, "English for Beginners" has ninety lessons, each of which is as practical as baseball rules. The plan is conversational between the teacher and some pupil, one pupil at a time, but made universal by repetition. The beginning is with questions which lead to these answers:

"I walk to the window." "I open the window." "I walk to the door." "I shut the door." "The door is open." "The door is shut."

The later lessons have questions leading to these

answers:

"These men break the ground for a cellar with the pick-axes."

"The mason mixes sand, lime, cement and water to make mortar."

"The painter dips the brush into the pail of paint to wet the brush with paint."

"The paperhanger measures the walls and the paper with a rule."

There is not a far-away abstract sentence in either book of conversations.

THE NEW CIVICS. By Roscoe Lewis Ashley. New York: The Macmillan Company. Illustrated. Price, $1.20.

This comprehensive book for secondary schools deals with American citizens in their collective relations to one another. It is an introduction to the study of the new attitude towards civics which lays stress upon citizenship rather than upon government; and is divided into three parts. The first takes up the citizen and society; the second, the government and the citizen; and the third, the different forms of public activities. The book is enriched with charts, maps and many illustrations and with index and appendix with outlines and suggestions for teaching. The arrangement of its material makes the book possible for supplementary work in American history, for short courses in American government or for a thorough course in civics. The details of the very complete Table of Contents serve as a guide in topical reference, and the chapter divisions make it easy to arrange classes which have but short time. Reference books are also given as aids to pupil and teacher.

BOOKS RECEIVED

"Experiments in Educational Psychology.' By Daniel Starch. Price, $1.00.-"Old Settler Stories." By M. E. Fletcher.-"A First Course in Higher Algebra." By H. A. Merrill and C. E. Smith. Price, $1.40.-"English Composition." By C. N. Greenough and F. W. C. Hersey. Price, $1.40. New York: The Macmillan Company.

pany.

"Old English Scholarship in England from 1566-1800." By E. N. Adams. Price, $2.00.-"The Case Is Altered." By Ben Jonson. Edited by W. E. Selin. Price, $2.00. New Haven: Yale University Press. "The New Barnes Problem Books." By Abraham Smith. Price, 10c each. New York: A. S. Barnes Com"The Progressive Road to Reading: Story Steps." By Kleiser, Ettinger and Shimer. Price, 32c.-"The Science of Human Nature." New By W. H. Pyle. Price, $1.25. York: Silver, Burdett & Co. "Hand Book of the New Thought." By Horatio W. Dresser. Price, $1.25.-"The Adventure of Death." By R. M. MacKenna. Price, $1.50. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

"How to Choose the Right Vocation." By H. W. Merton. Price, $1.50. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company. "Rational Sex Ethics." By W. F. Robie, M.D. Price, $3.50.-"Selections, Moral and Religious, from the Works of John Ruskin." By F. W. Osborn. Price, $1.00. Boston: Richard G. Badger.

"A New Pocket Dictionary of the English and Russian Languages." By J. H. Freese. Price, $2.00. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.

"Mental Adjustments." By F. L. Wells. Price, $2.50. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

"Grammar School Songs." By C. H. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Farnsworth.