of character and a genuine enrichment of experience must be found in the daily round and the common activities.

The habit of responding quickly as a unit to right appeals due to the war emergency is still with the American people. Shall this Association be less energetic in profiting by the important lessons learned from the world-war than the commerical world, for instance, which has already reduced the distance across the Atlantic to less than a day? Shall it not be constantly vigilant in recognizing and resisting all forces engaged in attempts to nullify the public understanding of the part the common public school in town and country alike must play if America remains true to the ideals of the founders of this Republic? As a means to this end, therefore, shall it not by concerted action discard antiquated courses of - study from kindergarten to university and make such adjustments in educational procedure as will most quickly prepare the teacher that the times demand? Shall it not use its great power so to educate the public mind as to cause it soon to attract this new teacher to the rural field by guaranteeing a living salary, a decent home, and necessary freedom of action best to serve the community interests? For in this way only can America have a system of schools in the open country that will make it safe for democracy.

C. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

ELIZABETH S. BAKER, SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL, PUBLIC SCHOOLS,
HARRISBURG, PA.

The education of the individual for himself alone has had its day, a day that saw great advancement and that was sufficient for its generation. Not only were the tools of education generously meted out to all alike thru our great public-school system, but to a certain extent the treasures of the liberal arts and the knowledge of the sciences were shared. Why? That the soul of youth might have the largest inspiration. This individualistic education, however, has not wrought the miracle of good citizenship. It has neglected the principles of reciprocity, comradeship, and fellowship. While it is still necessary for every pupil to become efficient and proficient with the tools of education the new democracy demands that the public schools develop whatever capacities or abilities the individual may possess in order that he may become intelligently active for the common good. The greatest opportunity for the individual and the greatest satisfaction to the individual are secured only when he works with others for the common welfare. Real social service is the highest attainment the individual can aspire to reach. School must no longer be considered a preparation for life. It must be a part of life, and education today must be a group enterprise where each individual in the group must act in relation to the entire group and must be ready, if need be, to sacrifice his own desires for the betterment of the group of which he is a

member. The schools of the nation must awake to the need of a more direct attention to realize their fundamental function, the preparation of the citizen, and since the education of so many children ends with the grammar grade it behooves us as elementary teachers to see that our school motive is no longer the individual advantage of the boy and girl but the larger purpose of his general welfare.

What kind of citizens do we want our pupils to become? Do we want them to accept plans handed down to them from above and execute these plans according to prescribed directions, thus reducing their own purposing to a minimum and the servile acceptance of others' plans to a maximum ? Do we want another to carry their responsibilities and pass judgment upon the results of their labors? No! We want citizens who are alert, able to think and act, and too intelligently critical to be easily hoodwinkt by politicians or patent medicines. We want them to know how to choose, how to weigh the relative value and importance of things, how to organize ideas and facts, how to be self-reliant.

How can this be accomplisht? By changing our idea of the methods of procedure in school life, always remembering that the aim of education is character, not subjects. We must have constantly in mind the ideal of school work which will value most highly opportunities for cooperation. and for contribution to the common good upon the part of our pupils, and we must train them in habits of public service, because everyone knows that we learn to do by doing.

This means that our ideas of conducting a recitation must be changed to meet the new issue. We must give up the old autocratic question-andanswer plan. No longer will teachers be judged by their own activity, but the activity of their pupils will be the measure of their ability. The teacher and pupils must study together the definite problems to be solved, and each pupil must contribute his part, not because he is to be graded by his teacher, but because he is working for the welfare of the group whose problems are his problems. Such recitations train students to initiate thought processes without continual prodding from the teacher, and to conduct their proceedings on a democratic basis, thus giving the pupils practice in government. They take the ground that scholarship and the power to think clearly are selfish abilities unless shared with the social group or capitalized for the benefit of the group. They develop social conscience by means of informed and free discussion, they lead to personal responsibility and independent thinking-the essence of the new democracy. They develop team work, make the problems to be solved the children's, and lead to power. The ideas of leadership, the necessary government of the group, the ideals of loyalty to the group, are basic and represent in the child world what organized society means in the adult relationships of life. The social aspects of every subject must be emphasized, on the idea that the more thoroly you know things or the more

expertly you do things, the more useful you will be to your family, your city, your state, and your nation; the better fitted you will be to exemplify and mold American ideals. History and civics of course offer the greatest opportunities for the teaching of citizenship, and as a teacher of those branches what they should contribute to the new democracy is my special problem.

History as taught in the Prussian schools exalted and glorified the Prussian state. Is that enough? No. History should develop the reasoning power and the balanst judgment. While it should kindle patriotism it should also cure narrow provincialism—a provincialism that sneers at all foreigners, that believes the false theory that "one's country is always right." It should be the remedy for the stupid partisanship which crushes independent reasoning and prevents reforms. The child who argues for the rights of the British Parliament during the Revolution, or presents the secession doctrine to his class, has learned to think. The ability to examine both sides of an argument, to pick out the truth while seeing another's point of view, can be exercised by children as well as by adults if they are properly trained to use their minds. The teacher must be careful not to twist history to suit her preconceived political notions or social theories. The impersonal search for truth is the major business, and the plainest duty of the history teacher is to concentrate on the character and work of patriots of all times and countries, and to show how, thru actions and reactions, the ideals of democracy have taken shape thruout the world. It is a part of the tradition of free governments that the burning questions of the day should be discust in public meetings, and if you want to see how true to tradition your pupils are assign a current local or national question for a lesson occasionally, and allow them to conduct the discourse, and watch the passive, inert pupils become spontaneously fluent.

What about civics? The old civics taught government as tho the end in view was to make constitutional lawyers. The new civics comes right into the community to help future citizens realize their responsibilities, their duties, and their opportunities for service, and the special aim in teaching civics should be to help the child to realize himself as a member of each political group that does work for him. He must be taught to appreciate the service rendered by all community servants, as the policeman, the plumber, the carpenter, and at the same time store up a fund of civic ideals that shall guide him later as an adult citizen. Civic activities must be talkt about and read about. Relationship of man to civic life and man's obligation to his home, his neighborhood, and his country, if taught insistently, would develop the spirit of good-will to so large an extent that this nation would become altogether different from any other nation on earth.

Good citizenship cannot be reacht thru glittering generalities as to loyalty to country. The growth of a better civic life will come slowly thru a knowledge of facts as to how the business of a municipality or other community is run-an active cooperation whenever the opportunity offers itself. The man who knows what the pure-food laws mean and is alive to the enforcement of these statutes will, if need be, exert himself to see that they are executed. The old bliss in ignorance may do for the individualistic person. The citizen belonging to the era of collectivism sees, feels, and acts for the common good, and every pupil can become active for the common good. Comradeship, friendship-making, and service can be guided in school with the surest result. Fair play, team work, playing up to the game, suggest cooperative ideals that mean life, society, highest civilization. The individual does not lose himself in these new relations. He simply becomes better acquainted with his own possibilities. He becomes a part of the whole with the spirit of sacrifice for the good of the whole. The nation that grows weak and uninterested civically is doomed to decay and revolution. The democracy that does not educate for vigorous and intelligent citizenship breaks down into a lower type of social organization. The individual who does not gain that education thru participation which democracy affords can attain neither a high type of social efficiency nor self-realization and continued growth. Civic interest aroused must bring corresponding motives for cooperation, and participation therein must cultivate civic initiative and civic judgment.

D. SECONDARY SCHOOLS

ESSIE V. HATHAWAY, TEACHER OF ENGLISH, EAST HIGH SCHOOL,
DES MOINES, IOWA

In all the upsetting of the affairs of men which the god of war has so ruthlessly enforced in the last five years I know of no one profession so completely turned topsy-turvy as the teaching profession, and of that profession I hold that no class has been thrown farther from its moorings and been forst more frequently to readjust itself than that forming the faculty of our secondary schools. Is it too extreme a statement to make that such a survey of our secondary-school work taken several years ago would have revealed an astonishing effort being put forth to train minds, but an equally astonishing lack of effort to visualize the place of that training in the development of the student's life or as related to the life of his community? I am prepared to say that it is not too extreme a statement. The first revelation of our deficiency began when the great black tragedy of Belgium brought home to us the fact that any training or any ideal, national or individual, which did not take into consideration the rights and privileges of every other nation or individual in the world, nation,

state, or community was a training and an ideal woefully lacking not only in breadth of thought and kindness of heart but in practical living possibilities.

One of the first things that came to us thru war necessity was a community demand, and so of value in the consideration of our subject. I refer to the use of the schools as a medium between public need and the family responsibility in meeting that need. That medium continued thru Liberty Loan campaigns, thru Red Cross drives, thru relief funds so various that we wondered if there could be no end to hunger, nakedness, and disease in the world. From the kindergarten to the twelfth grade these messages were sent from Uncle Sam, from state and community leaders, to families representing in descent, in labor, in social advantages, every phase of our national life. Merely as an advertising agency the schools became an absolute necessity. As a factor in democratic life they took on an immediately practical possibility such as they had never had before in our country.

But the school cannot be used for an advertising agency without being equipt with the ability to express the advertising matter in concrete and forceable terms; and neither school or individual can express anything forcibly or concretely without experience to enforce that expression. May I say then that in building up a modern democracy in a community a teacher of the secondary schools must in some way or other strengthen powers of expression in the boys and girls thru recognition of their neighbors' right to work and play. In short, a teacher of the secondary school must relate all the training of that school to the business and social life of the community if he is to have any place whatsoever as a real factor in building up the democracy of today.

There is a certain sullenness that comes sometimes from repression, either in whole peoples or in individuals, a sullenness that smolders dangerously toward explosion. I am sure we agree that all of the revolutions where a reign of terror has been part of the struggle have been caused quite as much by the great masses who could not express themselves and so could not protest effectively as by the command of those few who, keen of mind and skilled in speech, said, "This shall be so," and it was. But "public calamity is a mighty leveler." Everybody talks today! Socialist, I.W.W., Bolshevik, suffragist, politician, even to the humblest man or woman in public or private life. While all this babbling of tongues, echoing quite around the world, is trying just now, out of it will come a clarifying of visions and judgments such as the world has never known. Even the boys and girls in our schools have thundered in season and out of season on real subjects to real audiences until they have come to feel that they have an actual place in wielding public opinion-that they have an opinion worth while and can express it intelligently. That very fact is going far to give this generation a community and national unity, for