REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR 1904-5 ASBURY PARK AND OCEAN GROVE CONVENTION To the Executive Committee: In accordance with the custom set by my predecessors in office, I beg leave to present a brief report of some of the more striking features of the meeting of the Association held in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, N. J., July 3-7, 1905, and some suggestions, which seem to me valuable, regarding the future policy of the Association. The preparations made by the Local Committee in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove for the reception and entertainment of the Association were entirely adequate. Tho nearly twenty-one thousand teachers were in attendance, the hotel and boarding-house accommodations proved to be both ample and comfortable. The arrangements for transacting the business of the Association were all that could be desired. The churches and other halls used for the departmental meetings were conveniently located and sufficiently capacious, while the unsurpassed facilities of the auditorium in Ocean Grove-affording seating accommodations for eleven thousand people-were freely placed at our disposal for the general meetings. The music rendered by the Ocean Grove festival chorus and orchestra, under the leadership of Mr. Tali Esen Morgan, was a striking feature of the occasion, and added much to the enjoyment and profit of those who attended. The advance membership came for the most part from New Jersey and from New York City. New Jersey furnished 980 advance members; New York City furnished 6,753, of whom 6,367 were associate members and 386 were new active members. The large enrollment from New York City was entirely due to the efforts of an energetic committee of teachers. Ever since the Boston meeting in 1903, the active members residing in New York city have maintained a permanent organization, with Dr. Walter B. Gunnison as president, Miss Josephine E. Rogers as treasurer, and Mr. Harry F. Towle as secretary. In preparation for the meeting, this body appointed two committees—one on membership and one on entertainment. The committee on membership, of which Mr. William J. O'Shea was chairman, worked systematically for several months. Their efforts were crowned with success. Already nearly one-half the schools in the city became active members, entitled to send one representative each to the meetings of the Association. Before the committee concluded its labors, practically every school had become an active member, while nearly one-halft the whole number of teachers had become associate members. The committee on entertainment, of which Mr. Gustave Straubenmüller was chairman, established headquarters both in Asbury Park and in New York City. In Asbury Park the New York teachers added much to the success and enjoyment of the meeting by the social element they introduced. One feature of the closing reception at the New York City headquarters deserves particular mention. Each visitor was presented with a striking portrait of President Roosevelt, under which appeared in a facsimile of the President's handwriting a sentence from the address he had delivered that afternoon, together with a facsimile of his autograph. It would be well if a copy of this beautiful souvenir could be prominently displayed on the walls of every school in the land, as an inspiration to teachers and to pupils. The committee's headquarters in New York City was visited by thousands of teachers after the close of the meeting. Guides were furnished to places of historic and other interest, and everything was done to render the stay of our guests pleasant and profitable. Another treat which was very greatly enjoyed by the visiting teachers was a sail on a specially chartered steamer on the Hudson, through New York Bay, to Coney Island. Columbia University also made elaborate preparations for the entertainment of visiting teachers, a prominent feature of which was a notable sermon preached in the gymnasium on Sunday, July 9, by Dr. Lyman Abbott. The social functions maintained at the various state headquarters, particularly Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey, did much to promote the general enjoyment, and to provide opportunities for that friendly exchange of thought among teachers from all parts of the country which is one of the chief reasons for the existence of the Association. A unique feature of the convention was the holding of religious services under the direction of the National Educational Association in the Ocean Grove auditorium on the Sunday preceding the convention. Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, preached in the forenoon, and Rev. Russell H. Conwell, of the Baptist Temple, Philadelphia, in the evening. Their sermons were delivered to enormous audiences. They set a high standard for the subsequent meetings. Similar services should, in my judgment, be held in future on the Sunday preceding the first meeting of the Association. At a meeting of the Executive Committee held in St. Louis in October, 1904, it was decided that, in the meeting of 1905, the chief emphasis should be laid on the work of the departments; that the number of general meetings should be restricted to five, two in the afternoon and three in the evening; and that five forenoons and three afternoons should be devoted to department meetings. I am now convinced that this is the most profitable and economical distribution of time yet devised for the five days to which the meetings of the Association are limited. The general meetings are of high importance for purposes of inspiration and for the enlightenment of public opinion. On the other hand, there is a constant and growing desire on the part of teachers for instruction in all matters that pertain to the school and to teaching. Such instruction is best obtained in the department meetings, particularly when, as at Asbury Park, they are made the medium for recording the results of experience and of experiment, and of promoting free interchange of thought. At the meeting of the department presidents held in Chicago in December, 1904, to discuss the program, the following guiding principles for the conduct of each department were informally adopted: 1. The president of each department shall make a brief opening address, in which he shall review the most important experiments and advances made during the year in the particular field under consideration. 2. No paper shall exceed half an hour in length. 3. The discussion of papers shall be organized; that is, the president shall arrange to have present a number of persons who have given special study to the subject under consideration, and who shall hold themselves ready at any moment to carry on the discussion in a lively and instructive manner. The carrying out of these three principles, which were adopted in nearly all cases by the department presidents, reinforced by their own devotion to the work and varied to suit each particular case, was no doubt a large element in the unprecedented success of the department meetings. One department there was that surpassed all the others in the interest aroused by its program-the Department of Elementary Education. The interest was due not solely to the excellent program presented, but to the fact that this is the only department in which the subjects of most vital interest to the great mass of teachers-the curriculum, the methods, and the administration of the elementary school-are presented and discussed. The attendance on the meetings of this department was larger than the attendance of the general meetings ten years ago; indeed, it was much too large to admit of the most profitable kind of discussion. The inference is clear: the Department of Elementary Education ought to be divided into at least two departments, or else the time assigned to this department ought to be doubled or even trebled. The subjects in which three-fourths of those who attend the meetings of the National Educational Association are most interested ought to have a larger apportionment of time than they have hitherto received. The general meetings were largely attended. The plan was to have only one subject treated at each of these meetings, but to have it presented by a school man from the school point of view, and by a layman from the point of view of the taxpayer and the parent. The Association is particularly indebted to the distinguished gentlemen, not professional teachers—Mayor George B. McClellan, Mr. William Barclay Parsons, and Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, all of New York city-who gave freely of their time and labor to prepare and deliver addresses of unusual value. The most inspiring meeting of all, however, was the last, when the only stated address was that delivered by President Roosevelt. No one who gazed upon that memorable scene will forget it. A perfect summer day, when all surrounding nature-trees, flowers, earth, ocean-seemed to be in tune, lent an added charm to an event in itself deeply impressive a visit by the President of the United States to the national convention of teachers. Countless multitudes welcomed and accompanied him on the way from the railroad station to the convention hall. Inside, an audience had assembled such as it has fallen to the lot of but few men in the history of the world to address. Fifteen thousand men and women-the élite of the teachers of the United States-were seated or standing within the walls. As the western sun streamed thru the lofty windows and open doors, the roof and walls seemed to disappear, and nothing met the eyes of the President but the flag of his country and a vast sea of faces upturned in every attitude of enthusiastic and respectful attention. The warmth of the reception was equalled only by the eagerness to hear his words. Those words thrilled the hearts of those who heard them and will go down to history as an inspiration to teachers yet unborn. At the business meeting of the Association, the Board of Directors submitted for approval a bill embodying a new charter for the Association, to be presented to Congress for its adoption. The existing charter expires in February, 1906. The bill was prepared, under the direction of the Board of Trustees, by Mr. John B. Pine, their legal adviser, and was practically a renewal of the existing charter. When it was under discussion in the Board of Directors, that body, with the assistance of Mr. Pine, amended it so as to give a legal status to what has long been called the "permanent fund"-the accumulated and invested savings of the Association—and to provide that, in future, only the interest of this fund shall be available for use, except by a two-thirds vote of each of three bodiesthe Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors, and the active members. The report as amended was adopted by a large majority of the active members. Should it be found impracticable to secure the passage of this bill by Congress, the Executive Committee was authorized to take all necessary steps to have the Association reincorporated under the general corporation law recently passed for the District of Columbia. I beg leave to summarize my suggestions as to the future conduct of the Association under the following heads: 1. To increase the usefulness of the Association, to render its membership more stable and more representative, and to diffuse more widely the benefits of its deliberations, the active membership should be largely increased. To this end, I recommend that the plan which originated in New York city be adopted thruout the country, and that every school of over twelve teachers be urged to become an active member. Each school would thus be entitled to one representative in the active membership, and would receive the volume of Proceedings for its library, while the pecuniary burden on the teachers would be of the slightest. 2. The Department of Elementary Education should be divided into at least two departments. 3. It should be a matter of paramount importance with each department to have presented and discussed at its meetings any noteworthy experiment or advances made during the preceding year in its particular field of observation. Thus the papers and discussions will grow more practical and less academic from year to year. 4. The better to accomplish the last-mentioned purpose, the Secretary of the Association should be authorized and empowered to collect information regarding educationa] experiments and progress in foreign countries as well as in our own country, and to classify the facts collected for use by the department presidents in making up their programs. It follows that he should be provided with a sufficient number of qualified assistants. All of which is respectfully submitted. NEW YORK CITY, September 13, 1905. WILLIAM H. MAXWELL, President. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION SECRETARY'S OFFICE, Winona, Minn., Nov. 1, 1905. To the Board of Trustees of the National Educational Association: GENTLEMEN: I beg leave to submit, herewith, report of the leading features of the business of the Secretary's office since November 1, 1905. MEMBERSHIP The growth of the active membership of the Association since its organization is shown by the following table: The enrollment of educational institutions has increased by 230 since the last report; RECEIPTS AND EXPENSES OF SECRETARY'S OFFICE While it is intended that all revenues of the Association shall be paid direct to the Treasurer, the Secretary is charged with the collection of annual dues of active members not attending the annual conventions; of new members enrolled at other times than during the annual convention; of receipts from the sale of back volumes, reprints, committee reports, etc. The revenue from these sources is reported by the Secretary to the Treasurer monthly. |