DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL PATRONS SECRETARY'S MINUTES OFFICERS President MRS. Louis Hertz, Council of Jewish Women... San Francisco, Cal. Vice-President-MRS. PHILLIP N. MOORE, trustee, College for Women, University of the South, FIRST SESSION-FRIDAY FORENOON, JULY 7, 1916 The department convened in the Ballroom of Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, at 9:30 A.M., Helen Varick Boswell, New York, N.Y., in the chair. P. P. Claxton, United States commissioner of education delivered a brief address on "Community Interest in the Public Schools." The following papers were read: "The Teacher's Responsibility as a Civic Factor in the Community"-Frances E. Harden, president, League of Teachers' Associations, Chicago, Ill. "Education of the Immigrant"-Elsa Alsberg, secretary, department of immigrant aid, Council of Jewish Women, New York, N.Y. "Report of Committee on Education, Council of Jewish Women"-Fannie Saxe Long, Wilkesbarre, Pa. Report of the Southern Association of College Women”—Virginia S. McKenney, vice-president, Southern Association of College Women. The following officers were elected: President-Hattie Hoover Harding, Chicago, Ill. Vice-President-May L. Cheney, University of California, Berkeley, Cal. LOUISE FARGO BROWN, Secretary, pro tem SECOND SESSION-FRIDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 7, 1916 The department met in joint session with the Department of Physical Education in the Ballroom, Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, at 2:00 P.M., Vice-President Posse presiding. The following program was presented: "Sex Morality or Social Hygiene"-Mabel L. Ulrich, M.D., St. Paul, Minn. "Social Service in the Public Schools"-Elizabeth McManus, chairman, clinic department, Los Angeles Federation of Parent-Teacher Associations, Los Angeles, Cal. "Administration and Method in High-School Physical Training for Girls" (illustrated by a class of 20 girls)--Josephine Beiderhase, assistant director of physical training, public schools, New York, N.Y. "The Boy Scouts of America"-James E. West, chief scout executive, Boy Scouts of America, New York, N.Y. CHARLOTTE STEWART, Secretary pro tem PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS THE TEACHER'S RESPONSIBILITY AS A CIVIC FACTOR IN THE COMMUNITY FRANCES E. HARDEN, PRESIDENT, LEAGUE OF TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS, CHICAGO, ILL. The school year that has just closed has been full of significance in its educational tendencies. This is particularly true of the administrative side of the public-school system. There seems to have been a widespread and very determined movement on the part of administrative officials to control teachers along lines where heretofore they have had a considerable measure of freedom. This movement has been going on along several lines. In some places it has been an attempt to disrupt teachers' organizations already formed, or to prevent the formation of organizations among the unorganized teachers. In other places teachers' tenure of office has been threatened or taken away, leaving their positions subject to the dictation of politically appointed school boards with all the train of evils which follows such a situation. Again, the attack has been on teachers' pensions, where efforts are being made to take the control of pension funds from the contributors and vest it in boards of education who are neither contributors to, nor beneficiaries of, these funds, and who have no interest in their conservation, but may use this power of control over the pension to keep teachers in a proper state of servility. The most important of all, perhaps, is the tendency to deprive teachers of freedom of speech and action. This is more apparent in the colleges and universities than in the grade schools, but when such an educational leader as Dr. Scott Nearing is forst out of his position as an instructor in a university because he dared to teach the truth as he saw it, it is time for all teachers to awake and to realize that if we are to be the teachers of the children of a free people, we must ourselves be free; for children taught by subservient teachers will never develop into citizens with well-balanst ideas of justice and honor, such as a true democracy needs, but will themselves become either subservient or tyrannical. How far are we ourselves at fault in bringing about this condition? Have we not blindly followed tradition handed down from an age long past where conditions were not at all those of the present day? Have we not shut our eyes to the many forms of oppression and economic injustice all about us? This condition, I have no doubt, grows largely out of the fact that for hundreds of years those who sought an education went to the great universities and libraries and there spent years poring over books and manuscripts, listening to lectures, and absorbing great quantities of predigested knowledge oblivious to the great throbbing world of life and labor all about them. They were not only without knowledge of this life, but were not in sympathy with it. Out of these universities came men and women of learning and of culture, but out of touch with the dominant life-forces about them. From this group came the teachers holding fast the standards and traditions set for them. These standards are slowly but surely changing. Little by little we are realizing that education is not all to be found between the covers of books, but that the greatest of all books, that of life itself, is spread wide open all about us; and that to be truly educated we must have, not only a knowledge of this great book of life, but a profound understanding of the economic principles which govern the conditions and control the lives of the people whose children we teach. Government statistics show that 60 per cent of the wealth of this nation is owned and controlled by 2 per cent of the population. In other words, under our present economic conditions, if $100 were to be divided among one hundred men, two of the men would receive $60 while the remaining 98 men would have to content themselves with $40. The children of the 2-per-cent class, as a rule, are educated in private schools, hence our problems lie with those of the 98-per-cent class. Under what conditions are these children born and in what kind of homes do they live? How are they clothed and fed? What opportunities have they for natural play? Are their social and moral surroundings good, and have they been given a square deal? If we are to be the real teachers of children, all these problems become our problems, and the solving of them in the right way just as much a part of our duty as following the course of study and putting the children thru the grade. What is the best way in which to work toward a solution of these problems? How can we best cooperate with other forces in a community working toward the same end? We can do but little alone. We must unite with others. We as teachers should become a part of the social, civic, and political movements which have for their purpose the bettering of living conditions. An increast income always means a higher standard of living, better homes, and more nourishing food. It means that the children are kept in school instead of being sent into shops and factories to add their little mite to the family's revenue. It means that the mothers are able to stay in the homes and give to the children the care they need. Thousands of children are forst into industry at an age when they should be in school or at play. They must take the burden of life on their shoulders all unprepared, with bodies immature and minds undevelopt, with moral and social ideals in a chaotic state. The only occupations open to these children are those which call for the hardest work and pay the lowest wages with almost no chance for advancement. When economic conditions are such that the mothers are compelled to leave the home for long hours at a time and spend those hours at hard labor, the children are denied their birthright of sound bodies, normal minds, and the physical care and moral guidance that every child should have. The teachers are the ones who must take the children as they come out of these homes of poverty and degradation, underfed and insufficiently clothed, and try to build on such a foundation the structure of human life and happiness. We are the ones who should know that an injustice done to the humblest man or woman reacts upon the entire fabric of society, and that, therefore an injury to one should be the concern of all. We are the ones who touch most nearly the lives of the people and who should understand most clearly the power and influence our teaching has in the life of the community. We should use all this influence so to change conditions as to make it possible for all children to be given the opportunity to grow naturally and happily into the best possible men and women. If this be our purpose and we are to accomplish it, we must put away many of the traditions of the past and catch step with the present. We must give up worshiping at the shrine of the "God of things as they are," and start a campaign with "Things as they should be" for our slogan. We must demand that teachers be given the rights of citizenship, of organization, of freedom of speech and political action. We must work for tenure laws that will protect the teachers in the positions for which they have fitted themselves by years of training, which will make it possible for them to do their work undisturbed by changing political administrations, and which will protect the children against being subjected to a corps of teachers who, in order to retain their positions, are forst into a condition of servility. We must work for political freedom in order that our influence and our votes may be used to help secure the enactment of much-needed legislation. We must work for the right to organize and to unite with other organizations and for freedom of speech. We must have vision and understanding and see to it that our teaching of today will make it possible for the teachers of tomorrow to walk without servility, with heads erect, and unafraid. EDUCATION OF THE IMMIGRANT ELSA ALSBERG, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRANT AID, COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN, NEW YORK, N.Y. A realization of the responsibility of governmental agencies for the education of the adult immigrant is a matter of comparatively recent consciousness on the part of the public. With this consciousness there arose the consideration of methods of ways and means of reaching the adult alien, to interest him, to ascertain his educational needs, and to devise ways of supplying them. The various processes of immigrant education are mainly processes of assimilation. They include a knowledge of our customs and institutions, ooth social and economic. But these are processes fundamentally dependent on a working knowledge of the English language and upon some comnand of the three R's. As distinct, therefore, from the broader subject of Americanization, which includes educational questions concerning vocational training and a study of civics and American history-of citizenshipI shall confine myself to that phase of immigrant-education which deals with a study of English and elementary subjects with special reference to girls and women. Without this knowledge of our language the foreigner cannot have that social contact with the native-born that takes him out of the isolation of his "foreign quarter" and introduces him to American customs and ways of living. Without English he cannot have access to that great Americanizing influence the daily newspaper. On the economic side also, the non-English-speaking alien is at a great disadvantage. He is unable to learn of opportunities offered. In competition with the English-speaking employe he must be able to understand orders given in English by his "boss," to read signs of warning in factory and streets, printed police and safety regulations, and quarantine placards in the tenement house in which he lives. His industrial advancement depends in a large measure on his ability to speak and understand English and on his having at least a rudimentary education. Formerly it was taken for granted, and is still by many, that the public night school was the proper and only possible medium, under the supervision of local boards of education, thru which the immigrant could be taught English and simple academic subjects. In most of our large industrial centers the masses of immigrants are not reacht by the public night school. In New York as in other large cities an absurdly small percentage of the non-English-speaking residents attend night school. It has been conceded that this is not a proof of any shortcomings on the part of the alien, but on the contrary shows that the night school as at present conducted, does not meet his needs. Classes should be adapted to the immigrant, and not the immigrant to the classes. A large proportion of our immigrants consists of girls and women-a fact thus far insufficiently emphasized in considering ways and means of educating the alien-and there is a larger percentage of illiteracy among them than among the men. Moreover, few of our foreign women have ever dreamed that they would become United States citizens upon the same terms as men. A little spreading of this knowledge would be a great incentive to women to learn English and to educate themselves for citizenship. That the public night schools as at present conducted do not meet the educational needs of all immigrants is now generally conceded. It is shown |