until that city now has eight buildings, open an average of five nights each week, with a total attendance of 320,000 for the past season, and during this summer will have nineteen out-of-door centers of organized and directed recreation.

VOLUNTEER SERVICE THOROLY TRIED

The necessity of responsible and remunerated secretarial service for systematic social-center development that includes adequate provision for the training in self-government and the wholesome recreation of youth is absolute. The necessity of definitely remunerated secretarial service for the use of the schoolhouse as headquarters of regular and systematic deliberation on the part of citizens is no less real.

As a result of a plan suggested by the state superintendent, we may tell just about how much less than general, systematic, and continuous efficiency in organized civic deliberation may be expected so long as no provision is made for the recognition and remuneration of the school principal or other responsible person for work as civic secretary. At the request of the state superintendent, a letter was sent to more than eight hundred school principals thruout the state, which read in part as follows:

You may remember that last season a list of questions was sent to each of the Wisconsin school principals asking for definite information upon the wider uses being made of the schoolhouses, and asking for the school principal's frank opinion upon the socialcenter project and suggestions for its realization. The response to that questionnaire shows that in the past two years there has been an increase of nearly 100 per cent in the use of Wisconsin school buildings for every phase of social-center development-pollingplace, civic discussion center, lecture hall, library, and recreation house.

The final query in that questionnaire was this: "What do you suggest as the best method of developing the social center?"

From the answers you would suppose that most of the school principals were Yankees, for most of the answers were not answers at all, but were simply handing the question back and asking the framer to answer it.

All right, we will do our best; but our suggestions as to method and program will be useless, even tho they be carefully prepared, except as you recognize that we, and indeed the whole state department of education here at Madison and the whole university extension division, as they co-operate in this, are seeking simply to aid and assist you in this work for the community.

Inclosed with this letter is a brief outline of this season's suggested program. As you will see, it is made up of four series, the first night in each month being given to a topic of local, the second to a topic of state, the third to a topic of national, interest, and the fourth night taking on a recreational or social character.

If you are willing to try to have this plan, or part of it, realized in your community, fill out the inclosed card and return it. We shall then send you suggestions as to how to begin, a suggested constitution, and special suggestions for October, and then shall supply you, before the beginning of each succeeding month, suggestions as to speakers and material for making that month's meetings interesting and successful.

In addition to this general furnishing of material, we shall, of course, be glad to aid you in every way possible in meeting the peculiar problems of your situation by bringing to you the experience of other districts.

In your service for the community,

(Signed) EDWARD J. WARD, Adviser

ONE-FOURTH PROMISE-ONE-SIXTEENTH FULFIL

In response to this letter, notwithstanding the practically unanimous approval of the social-center idea by school men and women, and notwithstanding the fact that the program, which was suggested, included the constitutional amendments on which Wisconsin people are to vote at the coming election, but two hundred cards were returned. Two hundred responded to this call for volunteers to undertake, without remuneration for it, important but difficult public service. This was about one-fourth of those to whom the opportunity was presented. Two hundred said they would undertake the work. They meant to do what they promised; and they tried to do it. But only about fifty achieved any real success. That is to say, about one-sixteenth of the whole number to whom the opportunity to perform public service without remuneration was presented actually rendered the service.

Why? The head of the bureau of social-center development in the extension division sought the answer by asking that question, not only by letter, but in visits to more than thirty towns. And, while there were other minor explanations, the answer appeared to lie in practically every case, largely if not entirely, in the fact that the secretarial service of the school principal was not recognized as actually and officially belonging to his function as a public servant.

For the sake, not only of the money, but primarily for the support of the school principal in efficiently rendering this service upon which effective community organization depends, it is necessary that this work of civic secretaryship be definitely recognized as public service and remunerated as such.

FIRST SESSION-TUESDAY FORENOON, JULY 7, 1914

The meeting was called to order in the Auditorium at 9:00 A.M. by President Oliver S. Westcott.

In the absence of the secretary, the president appointed Charles H. Perrine, assistant principal, Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago, Ill., secretary pro tempore.

The following program was presented:

"President's Address-The Old and the New"-Oliver S. Westcott, principal, Waller High School, Chicago, Ill.

"Bishop Grundtvig and the People's High Schools"-Edwin G. Cooley, Chicago, Ill. "The Value of History of Art as a Study in Secondary Schools"-Mary S. Mac Murphy, Derry, N.H.

John D. Shoop, assistant superintendent of schools, Chicago, Ill., not being present to give his paper on "The Utility of Parent-Teacher Organizations in Connection with Secondary Schools," it was read by William H. Campbell, principal of D. S. Wentworth School, Chicago, Ill.

SECOND SESSION-WEDNESDAY FORENOON, JULY 8, 1914

The meeting was called to order in the Auditorium at 9:00 A.M. with President Westcott in the chair.

The following program was presented:

"The Progress of Industrial Education in Cleveland, Ohio"-R. L. Short, principal, West Technical High School, Cleveland, Ohio.

"Some Things Worth While in Industrial Education in Secondary Schools"-E. G. Allen, head of the mechanical department, Cass Technical High School, Detroit, Mich. Discussion: M. H. Stuart, principal, Manual Training High School, Indianapolis, Ind., and Frank H. Ball, director of industrial education, public schools, Pittsburgh, Pa. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year:

For President George E. Marshall, principal of high school, Davenport, Iowa. For Vice-President-Emma J. Breck, head of English department, high school, Oakland, Cal.

For Secretary-Claude P. Briggs, principal of high school, Rockford, Ill.

THIRD SESSION-FRIDAY FORENOON, JULY 10, 1914

The department met in joint session in the Madison School with the Department of Vocational Education and Practical Arts and the Department of Science Instruction and was called to order at 9:30 A.M.

The following program was given:

"The Adjustment of the High-School Curriculum to Modern Needs"-John H. Francis, superintendent of schools, Los Angeles, Cal.

"The Tendencies and General Status of Courses in General Science"-William H. Timbie, head of department of applied science, Wentworth Institute, Boston, Mass., and Fred D. Barber, professor of physical science, State Normal University, Normal, Ill. (For these papers, see Department of Science Instruction.)

"Applied Science-Its Relationship to Shop Work and the Rest of the Curriculum in an Up-to-Date Technical High School"-Adelbert H. Morrison, head of science department, Mechanic Arts High School, Boston, Mass. (For this paper, see Department of Science Instruction.)

Discussion: P. P. Claxton, United States commissioner of education, Washington, D.C. (For this discussion, see Department of Science Instruction.)

FOURTH SESSION-FRIDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 10, 1914

The department met in joint session with the Department of School Patrons and was called to order at 2:30 P.M., in the Auditorium.

The following program was presented:

"The Responsibility of School Patrons in Regard to the Teaching of Sex Hygiene❞— William B. Owen, principal, Chicago Normal School, Chicago, Ill.

"The Responsibility of the Teacher with Regard to the Teaching of Sex Hygiene❞— Ralph E. Blount, instructor in physiology, Waller High School, Chicago, Ill. "Some Experiments in Sex Education"-James E. Peabody, head of department of biology, Morris High School, New York, N.Y.

CHARLES H. PERRINE, Secretary pro tempore

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

THE OLD AND THE NEW

OLIVER S. WESTCOTT, PRINCIPAL, WALLER HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILL. In the presence of an audience representative of the Secondary Department of the National Education Association one would naturally be inclined to preserve a respectful silence, but the custom, not to say the absolute requirement, of the organization, that its President shall give an opening address, prevents his following his natural inclination.

When unwittingly one has been thrust into a position like the present one, it must be that the agents in the performance had the idea that the person thus projected into conspicuity had a message pining for deliverance. It has therefore been my preliminary task to endeavor to ascertain what could have been the expectation of these agents. As I naturally belong in the rank of what are now called reactionaries, being a product as it were of a former generation, it may have been anticipated that my message would be in line of a going back to the "good old days" about which hangs a halo before the eyes of most persons who have passed the meridian of life. It may have been suspected that I might not be altogether in sympathy with the trend of the greater portion of the present work in the secondary schools. Such a surmise would not be far wide of the truth. The new fields of educational activity which have to do only with the possibility of a human being's acquiring a competency after a reasonable length of time spent in