The slavish morality of the school is due to its subordination to the institution upon which it is wholly or mainly dependent. The reasons why this has not been more frequently observed are two: first, most men are enslaved, unfree, traditional, subservient; and therefore they fail to note a characteristic like their own; and, second, the morality of servitors is entirely acceptable to the rulers and is, therefore, not reprehended. To the masses, the school, whatever it be, is in spirit like themselves; to the classes it is agreeable because lacking resistance.

So long as the schools are dominated by boards of education and administrative officers who believe that teachers cannot be trusted to aid in formulating and applying educational policies, so long will the schools be dominated by a slave morality.

How shall we develop character, initiative, resourcefulness, judgment, and the civic virtues in His Majesty, the American Citizen? In vocational subjects we insist that the teachers be practical men who have an expert knowledge of their subject. The teacher of carpentry must be an expert carpenter. The automobile instructor must have had long practice with automobiles. Likewise the teacher who would develop freedom and independence in her pupils must have had experience in the practice of those civic virtues. The teacher without skill or practice in her most important task will not be lookt upon with favor by the pupils, for honest pupils can have no respect for the teacher who accepts money under false pretenses. That the pupils lack respect for the profession is proved by the lessening number entering it, and that the public lacks respect for the profession is proved by the low salaries it pays. To secure the respect of pupils and public the teachers must leave the slave class.

An excellent start might be made by establishing teachers' councils that will give an opportunity to those who do the real work of teaching to formulate and apply educational policies. It is said that teachers are not fit to do this work. Possibly this statement is true, but it is certain that they will never be fit until they have been given an opportunity to practice. The establishment of real councils will set teachers to thinking on educational problems as never before. Thinking on these problems will solve most of them. The council will serve as a clearing house for the ideals and ideas of all the teachers in the system and it will release a pent-up enthusiasm for education at present unknown to educational administrators. It will bring freedom and independence to the teacher and through the teacher to the pupil. Intimidation will go out of fashion and truth will prevail.

These desirable ends will be attained only thru the establishment of real councils. Councils without power or responsibility will not serve a useful purpose except for the practice they may give in debating. They will be repudiated by all teachers with a spirit of independence, and unless such councils are repudiated teachers will be as helpless as before. The types of councils are usually graded as follows:

1. The advisory council. This usually has little power and no responsibility. Owing to its weakness administrators are free to flout its

recommendations with impunity or use its recommendations for their own selfish ends. This type is worse than useless, for it gives a false sense of strength to the teachers.

2. The advisory council whose recommendations are made a matter of official record. This is a decided improvement on Number 1, for it permits an appeal to publicity and public opinion. It does not hamper good administrators. It has been found that when recommendations of such councils are based upon experience and study they are nearly always accepted by administrators in good faith and acted upon favorably.

In local school councils genuine freedom of discussion requires the elimination of all persons in administrative authority. The presence of principal, assistant, or heads of departments will vitiate the work of the council. Teachers must be free to discuss without fear all matters relating to educational policy. Only in this manner can the responsibility of teachers be given a genuine test. Even this kind of freedom will not prevent sycophants from running with their tales to willing ears, but it does provide a measure of protection.

Again I say, slaves cannot teach free men the fundamentals of democracy. The preacher is expected to practice what he preaches. Does it not seem time to permit the teacher to practice what she teaches? The council seems to be a means to that end. Thru it, let us hope, autocracy will be forst to lessen its grip on our schools and democracy will some day be brought to the people.

A PLEA FOR GREATER DEMOCRACY IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS FRANCES E. HARDEN, TEACHER, STEWART SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILL.

In our nation today there is no power more potent for good or for evil than that which lies in our public schools.

The autocratic power exerted by the German ruling class and its influence over the great mass of the people has been traced directly to the training received in the German schools. The mental attitude created by this training, which began in the kindergarten and continued thruout the period of school life, resulted in that peculiar state of mind which made possible the Great War.

This inherent power of the public schools rests in the hands of the classroom teachers who day after day touch directly the lives of the children in their care and thru this direct daily contact exert, either consciously or unconsciously, an influence which in a large measure fixes their point of

view.

"We want to raise public intelligence to a point where it will realize and strive and stand for the principles of justice and righteousness first. We want to realize in our twentieth-century civilization an ideal democracy. We want to make the American democracy a beacon light for the rest of

the world, and set ourselves a standard that the rest of the world may follow, and we can do it only thru education. The pulpit, the press, and the bar have been in a large measure subsidized, leaving the public schools as democracy's last line of defense."

In the present organization of our public-school system there is an alarming lack of democracy. Our schools are supposed to train the citizens of the future for the task of operating successfully the multitudinous activities of a great democratic nation. This would imply a training in fundamental democracy from the day the child enters school, but our schools are not organized democracies. We have not even the beginning of the machinery of democracy. We will never have fundamental democracy in our nation until it is first establisht in our public schools. The only way we can train citizens for democracy is thru democracy, but our school system is an autocracy-autocratic in every phase of its organization where a small group at the top decides all questions of courses of study, textbooks, and general policies, while the great group below follows unquestioningly and often blindly. Not only is originality not askt for but it is discouraged, and one who dares to question the absolutism of those in authority is usually made to suffer.

The board of education is the dominating element in our school system. Boards of education for the most part are made up of successful business and professional men. They are not educators; they are business men, trained in business, and when an order emanates from the board of education it goes down through the superintendent to the principals, thru the principals to the teachers, and the teachers do what they are told.

In this way our public-school system has become a ponderous top-heavy machine. Courses of study are all prepared and handed to the teacher with instructions to follow closely the contents. Then it is that she gets the first information as to what she is to teach. The subject-matter is also dictated by the textbooks adopted, frequently at the behest of some powerful book company.

Our schools today are being used as never before as the means of reaching and arousing public interest, but the teachers have had no part in planning these activities. Surely this is an opportune time to bring to public attention the alarming lack of democracy in the conduct of our public schools and the fact that our American public-school system is administered autocratically-the classroom teachers having only a negligible voice in the determination of its policies.

While the very foundations of all our establisht institutions and customs are being upset, and new, and in many cases untried, systems are in process of formation, would it not seem advisable to make of our publicschool system a model democracy, in the conduct of the policies and in the execution of the activities of which all teachers would have an equal share and an equal responsibility?

This work might be begun thru the establishment of self-governing, advisory, educational councils of teachers, and so utilize, in the conduct of the schools, the experience, judgment, and initiative of the men and women in direct daily contact with the children and the problems of the schools.

All questions, administrative as well as educational, affecting the welfare of the teachers, the children, and the schools should be recognized as proper subjects for discussion and finding by these councils. All recommendations of the councils, whether on questions referred to the councils by the superintendent or initiated by the councils, should be made matters of official record.

The opinions and judgments of teachers could be thus brought to bear on the formulation of school policies, not alone for the sake of the policies, but because in no other way can a sense of responsibility be engendered in teachers for the carrying out of policies except by a voice in their determination.

In the administration of the schools teachers should also have a voice. Until such time as the members of the educational force are permitted to choose their leaders from the standpoint of inspirational leadership we will have in our schools an autocracy permeated by petty tyrannies, with a small group ruling despotically and a large group subserviently obedient to the power that controls the professional lives and activities of its members.

People are thinking today, more seriously perhaps than ever before, about democracy and what it means. They are thinking perhaps that real democracy means more than political democracy, that it means industrial democracy as well, and if industrial democracy is ever to become a fact the training for it must begin in the schoolroom.

If the ideals of democratic freedom for which the world-war was fought are to be realized, the period of reconstruction must have clear thinkers, men and women who are able to gather up the fragments of civilization, and out of them build a broader, better, fairer nation; one where justice will be assured even to the humblest member of society.

DEPARTMENT OF DEANS OF WOMEN

SECRETARY'S MINUTES

MILWAUKEE MEETING

OFFICERS

President-KATHRYN S. MCLEAN, dean of women, Ohio Wesleyan University.. Delaware, Ohio
Vice-President-EVA JOHNSTON, dean of women, University of Missouri
Secretary-ANNE DUDLEY BLITZ, dean of women, William Smith College

....Columbia, Mo.
..... Geneva, N.Y.

FIRST SESSION-MONDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 30, 1919

The Department of Deans of Women of the National Education Association convened in regular session on Monday afternoon, June 30, 1919, at 2:00 o'clock, in the Chapel, Milwaukee-Downer College, Milwaukee, Wis. The meeting was called to order by Kathryn S. McLean, president. In the absence of the secretary the president appointed Mina Kerr as secretary pro tem.

The general topic for the meeting was "What Deans of Women Can Do to Encourage Group Consciousness among Women," and the following program was presented:

"Industry and Politics"-Margaret S. McNaught, state commissioner of elementary education, Sacramento, Calif.

"Education"-Eleanor N. Adams, president, Oxford College, Oxford, Ohio. “Salary and Rank”—Anna V. Day, dean of women, State Normal School, Milwaukee, Wis.

"What a President May Expect from a Dean of Women"-E. A. Birge, president, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.

"What a Dean May Expect from a President."-Ruby E. C. Mason, dean of women, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.

SECOND SESSION-WEDNESDAY NOON, JULY 2, 1919

The second session, held Wednesday noon, July 2, at the Hotel Pfister, was in the form of a luncheon. Eva Johnston, dean of women, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo., presided, and the following program was presented:

"Some Counsel to New Deans"-Sarah Louise Arnold, dean, Simmons College, Boston, Mass.

"Am I My Sister's Keeper?"-Annie Webb Blanton, state superintendent of public instruction, Austin, Tex.

"Professional and Social Loyalties"-Mina Kerr, dean, Milwaukee-Downer College, Milwaukee, Wis. "The Work of the Bureau of Education"-Edith Lathrop, Bureau of Education, Washington, D.C.

The following officers were elected for the ensuing year:

President-Kathryn S. McLean, dean of women, Ohio Wesleyan University, Dela

ware, Ohio.

Vice-President-Eva Johnston, dean of women, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. Secretary-Anne Dudley Blitz, dean of women, William Smith College, Geneva, N.Y. MINA KERR, Secretary pro tem