American Notes-Editorial The New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in the maturity of its thirty-first year is taking measures to secure a larger co-operation of high school men and women than in the past. It has been rather predominantly a university organization, though it has always held in view the inter-relations of the fitting schools and the colleges, and has discussed at its meetings the subjects that were of common interest. It is now aiming to increase its secondary school membership and attendance, and all school men will feel that this is wise and will be helpful. The recent meeting was held in a large lecture room of the splendid new Institute of Technology in Boston-Cambridge. The site of the new buildings of this great technical school is one that is impressive-especially to those who remember the locality as it was only a few years ago. The transformation from barren marsh land and tide-swept water courses, to broad boulevards and parkways lined with magnificent structures, institutions and residences of brick and stone, illustrates the possibilities of the technical sciences and arts that are taught at such great schools as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There was a large attendance at all the sessions, including the evening banquet at the Hotel Vendome, where sociability and good fellowship reigned supreme. The speaking at these annual banquets of the Association is less formal than at the daytime meetings, but none the less impressive and instructive. This year President Hopkins of Dantmouth College, Milo B. Hillegas, Commissioner of Education of Vermont, and President E. T. Fairchild of New Hampshire College were the principal speakers. They were felicitously introduced by Principal Alfred Stearns of Phillips Andover Academy, the President of the Association. President Fairchild read a most entertaining letter, written by an uneducated but astute farmer, who undertook to show how the schools should be conducted and how the teachers should teach. This man was after a square deal from the schools. He complained that his boys were made to sit on straightbacked chairs pouring over books all the forenoon and afternoon and then given outside study-work for all the evening; and he wanted to know how "them educated fellers" would like it if a farmer should take one of their sons onto the farm and work him to the limit, forenoons, afternoons, and evenings? The conclusion drawn from this letter was that in every reasonable way our educational system should be made to apply to the conditions of actual life. We regret that owing to a misunderstanding, the last address of the regular program, on Saturday morning, could not be included in the presentation of the discussions in this number of EDUCATION. We are sure, however, that our readers will find the rest of the addresses of such value as to make this one of the noteworthy issues of our magazine for the current volume. Louis I. Dublin, Ph. D., Statistician of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York, has made an interesting study of the physical disability of New York City school teachers. The study contains statistics concerning 3,877 records of absence during the school year of 1914-1915. While crediting teachers with a record for longevity next to that of clergymen, Mr. Dublin nevertheless finds. that the 3,877 cases of illness when considered in relation to the 20,421 teachers employed during the year above mentioned, give a rate of 187.2 cases of sickness per 1000 teachers. In other work 18.7 per cent of the teachers reported sick during the school year of 41 weeks. Of the total number of cases 231 were contributed by male teachers and 3,646 by female teachers. For the men there were 88.5 cases of physical disability per 1,000 employed during the school year. The corresponding rate for women teachers was 201.5 per thousand. In relation to the number employed there were, therefore, 228 cases of illness among women for each 100 cases registered among men. Considered in terms of the individual teacher, whether sick or not, the average number of days of physical disability was 2.88 days. For men, including leaves of absence, the average duration was 1.34 days per teacher and for women 3.11 days per teacher. Again, we find the average period of disability more than twice as long among females as among males. It is a pertinent (we trust not an impertinent) query arising out of the study of these statistics, whether or not they have a bearing upon. the question of equal salaries for men and women teachers, which latter question has often been vigorously discussed in the pages of EDUCATION. The Bureau of Education at Washington reports that the volume. of educational literature continues without abatement. Between February, 1915, and December, 1916, 3408 entries covering books, reports, and articles on education were listed in the Monthly Record of Current Educational Publications issued by the Bureau. Publishers' statistics credit education during 1915 with 237 books, a slight falling off from the year before. Both figures are undoubtedly underestimates. In the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1914 it was noted that much of the significant contribution to current educational literature is in the form of reports of surveys and investigations. The 1916 report of the Commissioner, just issued, gives similar evidence. The volumes of the Cleveland Survey, the General Education Board's report on "Public Education in Maryland" and the Bureau of Education's bulletin on "Higher Educational Institutions of Iowa" stand out as especially noteworthy. It is also worth observing that a large part of the survey material is later being issued in permanent book form. The idea is that since the educational survey represents largely the application of accumulated theory and practice, it is a valuable medium for the formulation of educational doctrine. Mr. Richard Otto Johnson Analysis of Pupilage, Indiana State School for the Deaf, Indianapolis, has issued a pamphlet, which is a reprint from the Seventy-Second Annual Report of the Indiana School, in which he presents a variety of statistics concerning the pupils of that school, including mental percentages, educational measurements, age-grade distribution, progress and retardation, repeaters, enrollment, and elimination, causes of deafness, etc., with comments upon the facts presented. No such analysis, so far as we are aware, has ever been made of any other school. It is a valuable piece of work, and its value will be greatly enhanced if the record is extended through a longer period of time and if similar analyses are undertaken by other schools, so as to give a larger number of cases. In this connection we are glad to reproduce the following declaration of basic principles in the education of the deaf, adopted at a conference of superintendents and principals in conjunction with a Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf. "The education of the deaf child—which is claimed as a matter of right, not of charity-while a part of the general educational movement, is a distinct and highly specialized branch of the work and, as such, requires the services of expert educators of the deaf-those who know not only the commonly applied principles of general pedagogy and psychology, but who also, through special training, active experience, and thorough research work, know the possibilities, the peculiarities, and the limitations of the deaf child-who clearly know what is possible and practicable as opposed to the impossible and theoretical. This is a knowledge not possessed even by those who proclaim themselves masters, theoretically or otherwise, of the work with the hearing child, who, as a matter of fact, receives his education largely at the hands, not of his school teachers, but of the thousands with whom he comes in contact outside the schoolroom, and through the thorough acquisition of his mother-tongue with its vocabulary and expression which come to him naturally and easily from the very day of his birth-and all of which is denied the deaf child. With this special knowledge of deaf child nature as referred to above, acquired through years of study of, and experience with, the deaf, one may readily perceive that the problems presented are not ordi nary ones, that they are indeed complex, and further, that the ordinary curricula, text-books, grade divisions and modes of procedure adapted to the hearing child must be very decidedly modified with the deaf child. To those who are not engaged in the work of educating the deaf this knowledge does not come and they are ill-prepared to criticise methods, progress, and results which necessarily must be seen and judged from a viewpoint entirely different from their own." The official status-before-the-law, of teachers agencies is indicated by the letter given below, permission to publish which has kindly been given us by the Clark Teachers Agency of Chicago. We believe that it will be of general interest. MISSOURI LEGAL DEPARTMENT Hon. John T. Fitzpatrick, Commissioner of Labor Statistics, 207 Kansas Cy. Life Bldg., Kansas City, Missouri. Dear Sir: Oct. 11, 1916. This department has yours of the 5th inst., requesting an opinion as to whether or not the Clark Teachers' Agency, which is an agency that conducts a bureau for the employment of teachers, comes within the provisions of Article 2, Chapter 67, R. S. Mo., 1909, relative to employment bureaus and agents. An examination of Chapter 67, R. S. Mo., 1909, and particularly of some sections therein, discloses that our statutes relative to labor are intended primarily to apply to what is commonly known as the laboring classes. Relative to the establishment of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sec. 7784 of this chapter provides as follows: "The object of this department shall be to collect, assort, systematize and present an annual report to the Governor *** statistical details and information relating to all departments of labor in the state, especially in its relation to the commercial, industrial, social, educational and sanitary conditions of the laboring classes." The word "laborer" is ordinarily understood to apply to one working with his hands or engaged in physical employment. The word "labor", when employed to represent a class is commonly understood to apply to those working with their hands or engaged in physical toil. An examination of lexicons, as well as of adjudicated cases shows this interpretation to be correct. For instance, statutes giving We priority of payment to persons for labor performed within a specified time are universally construed as appyling to those that toil with their hands or that do physical work. (See Words & Phrases) have a statute that requires all words and phrases to be taken in their plain, ordinary and usual sense. (Sec. 8057, R. S. Mo., 1909) Furthermore, in Sec. 7794, Art. 2, Chapter 67, supra, is a provision for the establishment of free employment bureaus; it is to be noted that this employment bureau is only to be established "for the purpose of receiving applications of persons seeking employment and applications of persons seeking to employ labor". It is also provided in this section that no fee shall be charged or received from persons applying for employment or help through such bureau. The word help or helper is defined in the Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia as a "hired laborer or servant." Again, Sec. 7797, the section that provides for the licensing of employment bureaus requires that it shall be the duty of every licensed agency to keep a register, in which shall be entered the names and addresses of "every person who shall make application for help or servants, and the names and nature for which such help shall be wanted." This provision seems to exclude the idea that a register shall be kept for any other purpose than for the registration of those who perform manual or physical toil. It is seen that the term "help" applies to a hired toiler, and not to one who exercises a profession, and likewise, the word "servant" could not be held to include some one employed in a professional capacity. In view of the foregoing we hold that a teachers' employment bureau such as that conducted by the Clark Teachers' Agency does not come within the provisions of Article 2 of Chapter 67 R. S. Mo., 1909, and, therefore, such an agency is not required to be licensed in order to transact business. Yours very truly, (Signed) LEE B. EWING, Assistant Attorney-General. We quote the following from J. Sterling Morton, Secretary of Agriculture in the late President Cleveland's Cabinet: "We demand educated educators. We demand professionally trained teachers, men and women of irreproachable character and welltested abilities. We demand from our legislature laws raising the standard of the profession and exalting the office of the teacher. As the doctor of medicine or the practitioner at law is only admitted. within the pale of his calling upon the production of his parchment or certificates, so the applicant for the position of instructor in our primary and other schools should be required by law to first produce his diploma, his authority to teach, from the normal schools. |