assistants-all volunteers-has been fixed at one dollar a year. They are equally certain that Hoover has no political ambitions. No man would take the thankless job of trying to regulate food prices, distribution and consumption in which he is sure to make many enemies and an exceedingly uncertain number of friends, if he was planning to run for office. In British social circles Hoover was known as "the rudest man in London." Here in Washington, even when he has guests at dinner he is likely to leave the table suddenly to telephone and he not infrequently quits a party of guests without explanations in order to write down something that has occurred to him as worth recording. But the best proof of all is found in the fact that his great abilities as an organizer being well recognized in Great Britain when in the early days of the war he was offered a post of great responsibility in the British government which would have necessitated his giving up his American citizenship, he declined the offer without the slightest hesitation. To have accepted it would have meant a certain "Sir" before his name and the probability of a peerage after the war. A man who turns down chances of that kind has surely not been bitten by the society bug. And, finally, when it was learned that Hoover's oldest son, a boy of fourteen, is attending the public high school at Palo Alto, California, the cynics gave up the social prestige theory as an utter impossibility. Mr. Hoover plans to see, first of all, that the people of the United States get an abundant supply of food, that foods are properly and evenly distributed, that speculation in foodstuffs is stopped and that prices are kept at a fair level. He will see also that all the possible surplus of foodstuffs is sent to feed our allies in Europe. He is one of the men in Washington who seems plainly to measure up to his job. LOOKING ABOUT BY A. E. WINSHIP, EDITOR GUNNISON STATE NORMAL SCHOOL To work in eighteen state universities, colleges and normal schools in two months, ranging through half the states of the union in doing it, is the most interesting of experiences. Only two of the institutions were new to me, and of these the Gunnison, Colorado, State Normal School was intensely interesting. It is a rare experience now to find a really new state educational institution. A state normal school with no traditions and a president with a faculty that has no common traditional body of doctrine! Think of a faculty educated at state normal schools in Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado and Missouri, and in Chicago University (five), University of Denver (four) Harvard University, Columbia University, State Universities of Colorado, Kansas, Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and California, Boston University, Cornell of Iowa, Oberlin College, Knox College, Clark University, Brown Univer sity and the Agricultural Colleges of Colorado and Kansas. The school has labored under a great handicap until now, but hereafter it will have a millage twice as large as before and $60,000 every two years for ten years for new buildings. Gunnison is an exceedingly attractive little city, a mile and a half high with a wreath of the loveliest foothills we have seen anywhere about the richly fertile Gunnison valley, while behind every foothill with its satin vestment upon its classically moulded form is a snow-capped heroic peak. Dr. James Herbert Kelley is to be envied whether considered from the point of location, of facuity, of student body or of freedom from the handicap of tradition. The state is to be envied when one realizes how genuinely progressive and sanely educational everything is in this professional school among the clouds. Is there any other educational institution a mile and a half above the sea level? In industrial education, equal attention should be given to the general educational studies and requirements of the school children. The latter is of greater importance to the future welfare of the workers than the former instruction. Industrial education should include the teaching of the sciences underlying the various industries and industrial pursuits being taught, their historic, economic, and social bearings. All courses in industrial education should be administered by the same board of education or trustees administering the general education. No federal legislation on this subject shall receive the approval of the American Federation of Labor which does not require a unit system of control over all public school studies, general and industrial. Whatever is attempted at public expense under the form of vocational education should be under public and not private control, and, further, the control of all types of school supported by public taxation should be centred in a single authority responsible directly to the will of the people; that is, the local board of public school trustees in a city or town, and the state department of public instruction in a state. -American Federation of Labor. READING BY SUPERINTENDENT W. C. MCGINNIS North Troy, Vermont A recent survey of reading in the schools of St. Louis was made under the direction of Dr. William S. Gray of the School of Education of the University of Chicago. This survey compares the results in St. Louis with those in several other cities. Dr. Gray has compared the results in oral reading in St. Louis with those obtained in another large city. He says: "St. Louis pupils have obtained a higher level of achievement in the oral reading. . . . The amount of this superiority represents the normal growth which would take. place in from one-eighth to one-half of a year, depending on the grade which is considered. It is fair to assume either that greater emphasis is laid on oral reading in St. Louis or that the effort put forth secures relatively better results. St. Louis places accuracy above speed and permits the pupil to read more slowly. . . . The superior results secured by St. Louis are commendable." The speed of St. Louis pupils in silent reading was tested and compared with that of pupils of thirteen other cities, showing that St. Louis pupils attain a greater speed. Another test was made of the ability of the pupils to master the thought of silent reading. "This was done by means of a written reproduction of what had been read and by a series of ten questions in regard to specific points in the selection. A pupil's reproduction was scored by checking out all wrong statements, all irrelevant statements, and all repetitions. The words correctly reproduced were then counted. The reproduction score was determined by finding the ratio of the words correctly reproduced to the total number of words read. Each question answered was given a grade of ten points. The reproduction score and the grade received for correctly answered questions were then averaged to secure a quality score." A chart was made showing the results of this reading test and comparing the results with the average results in thirteen other cities. Dr. Gray says: "The chart shows that St. Louis attains a level of achievement in quality of silent reading which is distinctly above the average for thirteen cities. . . . This comparison is impressive, and its significance cannot be disregarded." That the St. Louis survey is a valuable contribution to the pedagogy of reading is certain; that the results of the survey, especially in the reproduction test, should be accepted as a correct measurement of thought-getting is questionable, and that wrong conclusions are being arrived at by some of the teaching profession is evident. Already in teachers' conventions and conferences we hear discussions of quality vs. quantity in reading, and whether children in our primary schools read as automatons having a deceptive ability to read glibly, or whether they are getting the thought and are able to tell about what they have read. It is stated that there are two radi cally different methods of teaching reading; one emphasing the mechanics of reading and the other having emphasis on thought-getting, and that the first method results in a superficial ability in rapid oral reading, while the second ignores quantity, stresses quality, and results in better reading because of a better understanding of what is read. The writer heard a prominent educator from a neighboring state say that he visited a fourth grade of forty pupils, heard them read orally, and later gave them a "quality" test (similar to the one used by Dr. Gray) and found the grade thirty per cent. below standard, although his snap judgment on hearing the pupils read was that they were better than an average fourth grade. I believe that the "snap judgment" was on the result of the test rather than on the observation of the oral reading. "The ability to rattle off words with facility, and the ability to read rapidly and even with pleasing emphasis and expression" in oral reading is not antagonistic to thought-getting reading, but the one is complementary to the other, and both are complimentary to the teacher. I have before me a course of study published in 1913. The subject of first grade reading is treated in part as follows: "The early language and reading lessons are closely associated. The aim should be to get the children to talk. Every effort should be made that the child may feel at ease, and be encouraged to express his thoughts. . . . The teacher should learn to talk with the children, not simply to them. She should arouse their social and motor activities and get them into an active mood for participation in the exercise. "The child uses sentences expressive of his thoughts when he enters school, hence we should begin with the sentence. Ideas and words suggested by the environment of the child should form the basis of the first lessons. . "These (sight words) should be taught from charts, cards, and the blackboard. . . . Use 'flash cards' as follows. . . . Phonics are important, and rightly taught aid greatly in good reading. If a class has the habit of getting the thought slowly, which is shown either by a halting oral reading or by failure to understand what is read. put away the books for a lesson or two-longer if necessary and do preparatory work until facility in getting the thought is secured. "Neither the sentence, word, nor phonic method should be abandoned entirely, but they should mutually supplement each other throughout all the earlier years of the course.... The results obtained by teachers following this course of study prove that the use of mechanics of reading and the stressing of thought-getting doesn't mean quantity vs. quality, but that they should go hand in hand and should mean quality plus quantity. The "quality" test is not always a fair test of reading ability. Two years ago the writer used the test and will give the result obtained in one rural school. The selection read consisted of directions on how to lay out a plot of land into beds and rows for a flower garden. After the test the boy who had the highest quality score and the one who had the lowest were sent out, one on one side of the schoolhouse and the other on the other side, to lay out the plot. The one who had the highest score failed in carrying out the directions and the one with the lowest score did a very creditable job. Reproduction is largely a matter of composition, which should be closely associated with reading throughout the grades. Composition is more associated with habit than with memory. Reproduction should be cultivated in reading and composition because it adds to knowledge, but knowledge and understanding may exist without the power of accurate written reproduction. This is especially true if memory and habit have not been trained along this line. Whatever a child does he does from instinct, habit, or memory. An uneducated lumberman can tell his boss woodsman how to fall his trees. build his skid-ways, his skidding roads and his hauling roads, and the boss woodsman can follow the directions. The lumberman cannot give the same directions so well in writing, nor can the boss woodsman reproduce them in writing because neither of them has acquired the habit of composition. A college professor could not give the lumberman's directions, but having read them he could reproduce them— maybe because, as Professor McConnaughy of Dartmouth College says, the educated man doesn't carry the world's knowledge in his head, but he carries the keys to it in his pocket. PRESERVE THE BOYS [A private letter from a highly respected city superintendent.] Dear Dr. Winship: I am profoundly concerned about the influence of war conscription upon the future welfare of the young men of this country, and I am writing you in the hope of alarming you and through you alarming the nation. Sunday's paper said that Secretary Baker is considering the proposition of conscripting young men under twenty-one for the purpose of training them for service at twenty-one. This suggestion it seems to me should alarm every man and woman who has the welfare of the nation at heart in peace as well as in war. War influences already are decimating our ranks in high schools as well as in colleges. If young men of high school age and college age are taken for the war in the very beginning, a whole generation will suffer for lack of trained and efficient leaders in the generation upon which the responsibility of the reconstruction of civilization will fall after the close of this horrible war. Besides, such a policy would so closely coincide with the plans and purposes of the capitalistic class who make money out of men and do not want the man power of their industries disturbed at a time. when they can make more money out of men, that such a policy would tend to provoke and justify a criticism that this war is after all a capitalistic war. From the standpoint of our national ideals we cannot afford to protect the men between thirty and forty at the expense of the young men under twenty-one, even though the latter class have not entered the industrial ranks and become profit bearing. Aside from this consideration I think educators and parents have the right and solemn duty of protesting upon broad humanitarian grounds. The boys under twenty-one have not yet had their chance in this world. The The men between thirty and forty have had their chance, and many thousands of them have deliberately chosen to assume no responsibility in society except to sustain themselves. However important they may be to commercial and industrial interests, their responsibility to society ends when they pay their board bills. The young men under twenty-one have the divine right to get all they can get out of the public school system of this republic until after they have crossed the line. The nation has already said that it must lay hands upon them at that age for military necessities. So far as I can see I approve of everything that has been done under the present conscription law and so far as I can see I protest in every mental and moral fibre against the conscription of any boy under twenty-one years of age, until after the man power of this nation has been exhausted up to forty. I do not want to see the time ever come in this country when the enthusiasm and patriotism and innocence and illusions of youth are capitalized to protect another class of older men, or the profits of trade. If this world were to end with the end of this war, and the food pirates and munition pirates, "land rats and water rats" of trade, were able to carry away with them their extorted gold to buy a chosen seat in the new Jerusalem, it would not make much difference whether young men under twenty-one went or not, but this world is not going to end with this war, and society and civilization have got to be perpetuated and rebuilt upon the young blood that is today within the public schools of this nation. It seems to me that nothing but blindness or cupidity could induce men to consent to the conscription of youths under twenty-one. No department of this government, no class of society, is so essential to the welfare of the nation, both in war and in peace, as the young men and young women who are just passing through our high schools and colleges. The constitution of California declares that "a general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence is essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people." and on this doctrine the constitution provides for a department of public education. If this system of public education is in truth essential to the preservation of the "rights and liberties of the people," then its army of school teachers and pupils is as essential to the life and welfare of the nation as the military in the field. In writing you so earnestly about this matter, Dr. Winship, I want to assure you that the thing I am arguing against does not touch me personally. I have no boy to be reached, and the only one in whom I am directly interested is already past twenty-one and is on the roll, but I feel that if the educational people of the country do not assert these fundamental principles of education and government, and do it instantly, there is danger that the next call from Washington will lay hands upon the youths in our high schools and colleges. I hope you feel as strongly about this matter as I do and that with your wide acquaintance and powerful influence you will bring about a state of mind that will prevent the United States from entering upon a course so unjust, so unnecessary and so disastrous. An appeal by you to the leaders in public education will be heard and heeded in Washington. Although I am past fifty, I feel that I should prefer to enroll with other men of my age rather than see our youths under twenty-one conscripted. I really feel that they should be prohibited from entering the service. I realize now what it means to this high school, to this city and to society that so many of our high school boys, in the enthusiasm of youth, have voluntarily gone into the service. Our larger experience and greater wisdom should serve to protect them and protect society in times like these. Please do me the honor to give me your conclusions on this matter. Very sincerely yours, THE EVANSTON WAY [Editorial.] H. M. R. profes Nothing that we have seen is quite so professionally encouraging as the plan proposed by the Evanston, Illinois, teachers. Superintendent A. N. Farmer had the courage of his convictions when he proposed a committee of nine, one principal, and one teacher from each of the eight districts. Ten conferences were held. At each of these, in a most informal way, the various questions involved were discussed. After every conference the arguments presented and the conclusions reached were reported by each member to the teachers they represented. At following meetings the suggestions and criticisms of the teachers were brought back to the committee. Having in mind the opinions of the teachers as well as their own, the committee formulated a final report to the board of education. Before attempting to formulate specific recommendations the committee agreed upon the following fundamental facts as a basis for the consideration of the problems involved. In school administration the needs of the children to be served are of primary importance and should, without exception, outweigh all other considerations. Boards of education, superintendents, principals and teachers; buildings, grounds, equipment, supplies and materials, although necessary are of secondary importance. They are the means to an end, not ends in themselves. Of the instruments or means of education the teacher is by far the most important. If the teacher lacks the qualities essential in gaining the results desired, the children suffer and their needs remain unmet. Since the achievement of the results the public school seeks to accomplish depends so largely upon the teacher it is of the highest importance that the conditions which affect the status and work of the teacher should receive most careful consideration and constant attention. In the final analysis, nothing so vitally affects a body of teachers and the quality of the work they do as the salary schedule under which they operate and the manner in which it is administered. The salary of a teacher at the very least should be enough to provide a living wage. It should enable a teacher to do the reading and pursue such studies as are necessary to keep her in touch with the progressive movements in education in this and other countries. In addition it should permit her to save something each year to provide for the time when she must of necessity retire from active schoolroom service. The maximum salary should be sufficient to retain the services of the most desirable teachers, as well as to induce teachers of highest quality to seek positions in the schools. The administration of a salary schedule should result in stimulating teachers in the service to develop to the highest degree whatever teaching power they possess. Superior work should be recognized and rewarded. Teachers should be classified according to the quality of service rendered and not alone on the basis of their years of service. The basis for classifying teachers as to their teaching efficiency should be systematized, rationalized and controlled. There should be something definite to show upon what the judgment is based; evidence should be available to support the final rating. The factors on which a teacher is judged should be carefully selected so as to include the really vital elements. The terms used should be so clearly defined that the teacher will not be in doubt as to what is expected of her. It is of the highest importance that the items listed be understood by those who use them. Confusion and misunderstanding are inevitable if the supervisor rating and the teacher rated have a different interpretation of their meaning. The rating schedule should enable a teacher to analyze her own work, to discover her own strength and weakness, and to find out how best to remedy the defects in her teaching. Salary increases should be based on the quality of service rendered as shown by the rating of the teacher's efficiency. In teaching, as in other lines, a "wage should be a gauge"-more pay should mean larger or finer service. Mediocre service should not be rewarded by increase in salary, lest ali service, including the best, shall suffer from withdrawal of efficiency rewards. Increases of salary should be conditioned upon demonstrated increased classroom efficiency. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION NEW ENGLAND AND NATIONAL 6 Beacon Street, Boston A. E. WINSHIP. Editor Entered at the Post-Office, Boston, Mass., as second-class mail matter Boston, New York, and Chicago, Sept. 6, 1917 PAGE 198 201 202 203 203 204 204 205 SPAULDING'S BEGINNING as No man has begun an administration with great public interest in his methods and principles as has Frank E. Spaulding at Cleveland. There are many reasons for this. He has the highest salary of any city, state or county superintendent in the world, if we except William Wirt, who supplements his $6,000 salary at Gary, Indiana, with his $10,000 for ten weeks at New York City. Then the circumstances connected with his election are most exceptional. He was promised the election last January, and retired at Minneapolis on the strength of that agreement. In May he was elected superintendent of Cleveland to go into office in September. He is now superintendent after seven months ad interim. He has reconstructed the supervisory force by from bringing to his official family a woman Minneapolis, men from Seattle, Columbus, and Rockford, Illinois. He has picked an official family as no other superintendent has been privi212 leged to do. 206 207 208 209 210 210 210 211 211 212 213 212 212 212 212 212 Preble County.. Preserve the Boys.. From Ripon to Occidental 212 N. E. A. Removes Headquarters to Washington and Selects New Secretary.. 218 The Short Story as an Aid to the Teaching of Latin Prose.. 213 214 High School Olympic Association... Educational News.. ..... Atlanta, February 25 to March 2. "Marching to Georgia" is the slogan for February, 1918. THIS YEAR This school year will be wholly unlike any other year that America has ever known. Patriotism will be paramount. Patriotic songs will be sung as never before. The salute to the flag will have a new meaning. The American language will have a new emphasis. History and geography will deal with Europe as never before. War will attract reverential attention as it has never done with this generation. Every community will have men on the battle fields of Europe. All local papers will have correspondence from the battle lines. School gardens, domestic science, physical science, physiology and hygiene will have entirely new significance. This will be a crucial year for every home in the land, for every business interest, for every school and college, for social, civic, and financial life. This will be a year of problems for everyone, and for school people especially. No one can be traditional if he would, and woe to him who would be traditional if he could. It is to be a year of sudden and startling readjustments, and it behooves us all to loosen up, to practice mental exercises for limbering the mind. as it were. We need nothing so much as shock absorbers personally and professionally. He begins his official career under conditions wholly unprecedented. Dr. Spaulding has the most complete body of educational doctrine psychologically, pedagogically, vocationally, administratively, of any man who has assumed leadership in a city as large as Cleveland. Such a man, under such conditions, with such opportunities, is sure to attract attention such as has no other educator. KANSAS CITY SALARIES The Kansas City Board of Education, under the lead of Superintendent I. I. Cammack, has struck high speed in professionalizing all salaries. For the year 1917-18 a principal shall have an additional salary advance of twenty-five per cent. of the total increase if he presents four semester hours of summer school credits made in a standard university within the last four years. In 1918-19 an additional advance of twenty-five per cent. shall be granted to any principal who presents a transcript showing that he has done ten semester hours of summer school work in a standard university in the past four years. After 1917-18 in order to continue his advance salary he must attend a summer school and make satisfactory credits once in four years. In general he must meet this requirement each period of four years or sacrifice $100 a year for each year that he fails so to do in any period. Efficiency in many specified ways is required in consideration of the extra salary. Among these are the requirement that he give forty evenings per year to supervising social centre and community work if there be such work in his school building. Minimum requirements for eligibility by credentials for principalships means 120 semester hours of college work done in a standard college, university or normal school, and means also that this work must include twenty-four semester |