None of them thus far—or not at least until the last few months-have been planned and executed around a series of projects in themselves worth doing in any community and of natural interest and appeal to children. None of them have been addrest primarily to children in child language, with the chief activities suggested rather than completely exprest in terms of adult logic. None of them have placed real emphasis on child initiative, child judgment, and child organization. Such of them as have made attempts in this line have made the projects used carefully subservient to certain principles and facts of logically outlined subject-matter which the author mistakenly deemed essential to the development and happiness of young life. None of them have set high ideals, personal character, and the spirit of community and national service-in brief, citizenship by practice-above information and everything else and made subject-matter a mere incident and means of accomplishment. In the new code suggested for adoption the central emphasis is to be placed upon these ideals unrecognized in practice in education and only of late given any great prominence in modern educational philosophy. Such a code for the making of textbooks should make the following provisions: 1. That every suggested activity have moral and civic motive. These motives may not be recognized by the child as moral except as the activity provided connects itself with some child interest or principle which is in itself worth accomplishing from the child's point of view. The pull of interest and the ultimate moral principle must always be present, or the activity is unmotivated and compelled, and useless from an educational standpoint. The development, thru the practicing of interesting and motivated activities, of a patriotic spirit of service and a moral and personal fitness for such service is the common element that should run thru all textbookmaking, no matter what the age of the student or what class of population the text may be prepared for. 2. That great emphasis shall be placed on pupil initiative citizens of a democracy are to be taught by means of constant practice to assume responsibility, make choices, and undertake organization. Textbooks which merely give direction and assume obedience, with the hope of inculcating knowledge or developing skill can never make an efficient, self-reliant well-trained citizenship. Textbooks must therefore be addrest largely to the pupils, coucht in the pupil's language, suggestive of a wide range of pupil interest. They must be of the laboratory type, offering wide range of choices in projects and problems, for the schools are to be the laboratories of democracy. 3. That the material of textbooks consist of series of suggested projects, of themselves worth while in the school community, or the larger community outside, and of impelling interest to the varying types of child life. This means the obliteration of school subjects as such, except in the realm of scientific research and specialization. Subject-matter in such a scheme must necessarily be incidental. The materials of geography, of history, of literature, all come into play, because they may be of assistance in giving foundation for civic attitudes for appreciation of the present, for planning for the future. Subject-matter of the mechanical type is necessary too, such as arithmetic, mechanics of reading, etc., because without them skill cannot be developt that will solve the individual or community problem presented. They are not, however to be all-important because they are arithmetic, or geography, or spelling, or because child life will not develop happily and beautifully and usefully unless a modicum of them is pounded into their craniums. These subjects are to be involved because they help child life in an activity that works out a useful project, an activity that develops the pupil into a more useful, patriotic citizen. 4. That grades and classifications of textbooks shall be upon a new basis. Obliteration of subjects as a basis of classification will mean the adoption of another set of bases. Let me suggest these: (a) things to be done in the school and community instead of subjects; (b) mental capacities and measured intelligence instead of grades or classes; (c) kinds of neighborhood or types of school instead of uniformity. DEPARTMENT OF THE WIDER USE OF SCHOOL HOUSES SECRETARY'S MINUTES OFFICERS Vice-President-CHARLES C. KELSON, director of social center WEDNESDAY FORENOON, JULY 3 Los Angeles, Calif. The Program consisted of a general discussion of the "Wider Use of Schoolhouses" and of the "Purposes of the Bureau of Naturalization in Extending the Influence of This Department." The usual business meeting was held, at which the following officers were elected: President Raymond F. Crist, deputy commissioner of naturalization, Bureau of Naturalization, Department of Labor, Washington, D.C. Calif. Vice-President-Charles C. Kelson, principal, Los Angeles public schools, Los Angeles, Secretary Mrs. Margarita Spaulding Gerry, Board of Education, 2944 Macomb Street, Washington, D.C. DEPARTMENT OF SUPERINTENDENCE ATLANTIC CITY MEETING, FEBRUARY 25-MARCH 2, 1918 EVENING SESSION—TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1918 The Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association met on Young's Million Dollar Pier, Atlantic City, N.J., at 8:00 p.m., President Thomas E. Finegan, deputy superintendent of schools, Albany, N.Y., presiding. A preliminary musical program of community and patriotic singing, led by A. J. Gantvoort, was participated in by the audience. The session opened with an invocation by Rev. Henry M. Mellen, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. Addresses of welcome were given by Harry Bacharach, mayor of Atlantic City, and Calvin N. Kendall, state commissioner of education, Trenton, N.J., to which response was made by Mary C. C. Bradford, president of the National Education Association. Charles S. Whitman, governor of the state of New York, Albany, N.Y., delivered the address of the evening. After Governor Whitman's address Mortimer E. Cooley, dean of the School of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., gave a talk on "The Shortage of Trained Engineers." President Finegan announst the following committees: COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS F. B. Pearson, state superintendent of public instruction, Columbus, Ohio. H. S. Weet, superintendent of schools, Rochester, N.Y. Josephine C. Preston, state superintendent of public instruction, Olympia, Wash. John W. Withers, superintendent of schools, St. Louis, Mo. C. P. Cary, state superintendent of public instruction, Madison, Wis. Henry Snyder, superintendent of schools, Jersey City, N.J. Frank E. Spaulding, superintendent of schools, Cleveland, Ohio. COMMITTEE ON NOMINATIONS A. N. Cody, superintendent of schools, Flint, Mich. |