JOTTINGS OF A TRAVELING BOOKMAN

By Wm. M. Culp

Guy Hudgins, district superintendent of National City schools, intends to have a regular junior high school of seven, eight and ninth grades organized next school year. A building last year used as a temporary shop is being renovated into a regular classroom building for the senior high school. New shops are being constructed. Thirty-two thousand dollars is being spent of the two projects, which was raised by a special 70-cent tax. In appreciation of Mr. Hudgins' work the student body has named their athletic field Hudgins' Field. The student body has also fenced the field out of their own funds. Six hundred dollars was spent for materials. The work of setting up the fence and gates was done by the students themselves. The enrollment of the high school is 417 and of the junior high school 116. Scholarship students have been raised. Sixteen per cent of the student body are receiving a grade of one.

L. M. Oberkotter, principal of the Chino high school, teaches three sciences along with his principalship duties.

John H. Waldron, district superintendent of Colton schools, has moved his seventh and eighth grades into the old high school plant which the grammar school district purchased from the union high school district; 225 are enrolled in this intermediate school. Mr. Waldron now has charge of five schools. This is Mr. Waldron's eighth year in the Colton system.

Glen D. Wright, district superintendent of Corona schools, has his high school housed in the fine new $150,000 plant. The campus lies in the highway west of

town and the new building looms up handsomely. The building is two story, built of solid concrete, and mission in effect. The wings of the building are of one room depth, with northern light, and with south exposure on open corridors of rustic finish. The rooms have folding doors on the corridors, so the classrooms give practically an out-of-doors condition in warm and pleasant weather. On both sides the pupils have beautiful views of the mountains.

The center of the building comprises the well-arranged offices and the auditorium. The auditorium is of especial delight. Dark-hued in finish with a massive beamed ceiling and a lighting effect of huge hooped chandeliers, a good slope to the floor, an orchestra pit, a roomy stage, all of which together gives a distinct atmosphere to the whole school building.

A domestic science unit is on the ground adjacent to the main building. The buildings already erected are part of a large plan that Mr. Wright and his Board of Education have worked out. As the school

George A. Dickson, principal of the Oceanside high school, has a school that now enrolls 135 pupils. His school was built for sixty students. A bond issue of $50,000 is being advocated. It is planned to add a study hall and four classrooms.

Henry C. Johnson, superintendent of San Diego city schools, has just carried a bond election for $1,250,000; $850,000 is to be spent for two new junior high schools and a new auditorium for the high school. The remainder of the issue will be spent for elementary school buildings. The erection. of the two new junior high schools will make five for the San Diego city system. Will Angier, business manager, expects that this bond issue will be sold at a good premium.

Escondido high school, under the principalship of M. W. Perry, during the last six years has increased greatly. The enrollment six years ago was 132, now it is 361. Of this number 119 represents the night school enrollment. The night school is in the second year of its existence. The Rancho Santa Fe has lately been annexed to the Escondido high school district. This will add $200,000 to the assessed valuation of the Escondido district. The Rancho Santa Fe is a huge subdivision irrigation project fourteen miles south of Escondido that the Santa Fe railroad is putting through.

Mrs. Beulah W. Howland, principal of the Escondido grammar school, together with her teachers and pupils is making a great success of a Redpath series of five events. Several hundred dollars that will be raised will be spent for playground equipment. The enrollment of the Escondido grammar schools has passed the 500 mark.

F. T. Chemberlen, principal of the Woodrow Wilson school, Sawtelle, Los Angeles, has evolved a Ritualistic Opening of the student body meetings that gives the student a striking presentation of the American ideals of citizenship. The head of the history department, Mrs. Camille W. Burt, worked out the details under Mr. Chemberlen's direction. The Ritual has been copyrighted in Mrs. Burt's name. The exercise is impressive to both pupil and onlooker and cannot but deepen one's knowledge of the duties of citizenship and service to the school and the United States. This service has been a year and a half in the making and is carried out once a month at the student body's meetings.

John F. West, superintendent of Pasadena schools, is up in arms against the report of the United States Department of Commerce, which indicates that Pasadena school costs are the highest in California. Mr. West says that the government took the costs of the entire Pasadena school dis

Miss Letha Raney is principal of the Corona junior high school, which is housed in the old high school plant. Miss Raney is developing a junior high school along the latest lines of educational research.

cludes a tremendous territory outside the corporate limits, and then the population of Pasadena city alone for determining the per capita expense. The Pasadena population figures around 50,000, while the population of the area the school serves is 75,000. The first figure makes the per capita cost $24.02, while the latter figure brings the cost down to $16.30.

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WHEN was the great pyramid of Cheops built?
HOW can you distinguish a malarial mosquito?
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WHO was the Millboy of the Slashes?
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PART III

The teacher is the power in the Alaskan community and is turned to for aid in every case. The churches which have established missions in these outlying communities have their share in the selection of a teacher and bear a portion of the expenses of the school.

Russian trading companies and priests of the Greek church were the first to establish schools in Alaska, as far back as 1785, when Grigor Ivanovich Shelikof, "the father and founder of Russian colonies in America," established the first school.

After the attempts of the Graeco-Russian church to establish schools, the Presbyterian was the next church to enter the field. This church established a boarding and industrial school for natives at Wrang

ell in 1877. The Moravian was the next religious denomination to establish a school for natives at Bethel on the Kuskowim River, in 1885. These schools received government aid for a number of years. This support, however, was withdrawn in 1895, after which time the Moravian church proIvided entireiy for maintenance until the Bureau of Education extended its work to this region and assumed charge.

given to vocational education and personal and community hygiene. The schools are in general well equipped and in charge of competent teachers.

(b) Social service in native villages. This feature of the work required of the teachers. is of great importance and includes every thing usually conveyed in the term "social service." Visits to the various homes, assistance in caring for the sick in communities where no regular doctor or nurse is stationed, organization of community activities and the like consume no small part of the out-of-school time of teachers.

(c) Medical service. During the school year 1919-1920 the bureau expended $80,

000 for medical relief for natives.

Hos

pitals were maintained at five different points. In all nine physicians and thirteen nurses were employed. Each teacher in the school service is provided with standard medical equipment with which to render assistance in the case of minor injuries and ailments.

1886 with the establishment of a school for white children in Juneau. Later schools for natives were established and several are still being conducted.

The educational work of the Protestant Episcopal church is and has been entirely confined to schools for the natives of Alaska. Christ Church school was established at Anvik in 1887. At least a dozen schools are maintained by this church, both boarding and day schools. The Methodist Episcopal church, Friends Society and the Swedish Evangelical church are others doing good work among the natives. The latter has two schools, one at Yakutut and one at Unalakleet. These schools were taken over by the U. S. Bureau of Education, which now supplies the teachers and provides general maintenance costs.

Miss Elsa Louise Johnson, teacher in the Mill Valley schools for the past two years, is the teacher at the Yakutut school this year. She told the writer that her appointment was made, after several years' effort to go either to the Orient or Alaska to teach, through the missionary board of the Swedish Evangelical church, of which church she is a member. Her appointment was subject to the approval of Mr. Lopp, who was then chief of the Alaska Division of Education.

The present activities of the U. S. Bureau of Education, which is responsible for the education of the natives, may be summarized as follows, according to L. D. Henderson of the Territorial schools:

(a) The formal education of the native children. During the school year 1919-1920 sixty-seven schools, enrolling approximately 3000 pupils, were maintained. The teaching force consisted of 133 teachers and six superintendents.

A feature of the work is the attention

introduction of reindeer among the Alaskan natives has tended to raise them a step in the scale of civilization by converting them from a hunting to a property accumulating people. The deer supplies the natives with food, clothing, transportation and a considerable income in communities where there is a market for meat and hides. Loman and Company with headquarters at Nome are the largest individual owners. Their herds aggregate in all 30,000 deer. During the past few years this firm has erected several cold storage plants and has shipped several thousand carcasses of reindeer to the markets in the larger cities of the States. Under the reindeer rules and regulations of the Bureau of Education native owners of deer are prohibited from disposing of female deer except to other natives. Before the introduction of reindeer the Alaska natives were greatly in lack of a sufficient supply of proper food, due to the inroads made by American whalers and trappers on the natural food supply of the country.

(e) Co-operative stores. These stores are are maintained at Metlakahtla, Klawock, Hydaburg, Atka, Wainwright, Klukwan, St. Lawrence Island, Tyonek and Wales. The capital stock in all these stores is owned by the natives. In addition to their economic value, such enterprises are of vast educational benefit to the natives.

Dr. Sheldon Jackson was the first chief of the Alaska Division in the Bureau of Education. He was appointed to the office in 1885. Harlan Updegraff was the next appointee holding office from 1907 to 1910 when W. T. Lopp took charge.

Alaska's future is one of remarkable

promise. Untold wealth is waiting for the men with brawn and brains. With the further development of the mining, lumbering and fishing industries, and the increase in the fur and reindeer industries, the attendant influx of people will increase the need for good schools.

The present school system, with Jonathan D. Wagner as chief of the Alaska Division; with W. T. Lopp personally superintending the instruction of the natives, and with L. D. Henderson as commissioner of education, is amply able to cope with the local problems, difficult as they may be, and to give to the children of Alaska an education-the right of every American citizen, the means of self-help and adjustment to civilization. The future citizens of the northland are having every opportunity accorded them which will help them to fulfill their obligations to their people, to their country and to the world. (The End)

W. Otto Meissner, author of "Art Song Cycles" and other musical books published by Silver, Burdett & Company and president of the National Conference of Supervisors of Music of the United States, made a brief visit to California recently. He was entertained while here by Fred T. Moore, was a guest of Sequoia Club and other organizations. His magnetic personality and fundamental knowledge of music made a deep impression on all he met.

TEACHERS' AGENCIES

The Supreme Court of California ruled on February 26, 1924, that the act of the Legislature in reference to limiting the fees of the teachers' agency is unconstitutional. The California court quotes from decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold its conclusions. This decision should settle for all time the petty lobbyists who have from time to time tried to ruin the legitimate business of the California teachers' agencies. The agencies as conducted by such men as E. C. Boynton, W. B. Coddington, J. W. Hahn, J. B. Stearns and Mr. Roberts have been of great service both to teachers and boards of education.

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WHAT BOOKS SHALL WE BUY AND WHEREWITHAL SHALL WE

BE GUIDED?

en

It goes without saying that the live library should buy the latest and best books on every industry and pursuit in which the users of the library are interested or gaged. In a farming community the library should have the most reliable books and pamphlets on all phases of agriculture engaged in or possible to be undertaken in that locality. The same principle holds. true of the mining district, the fruit-growing, or the stock-raising regions.

It is in the field of general literature that discriminating choice must be exercised. Here, the reliable book review is a guide. The criticism which is valuable to the librarian is the one that is written from an unbiased viewpoint, with no mere desire to advertise the book in order to sell it, but with the purpose of acquainting the reader with its value, or the lack of it. If both favorable and unfavorable criticisms. were given, the librarian is able to make his own evaluation. Some librarians prefer to read each book of fiction before purchasing it, and to make their own estimate of its value to their particular constituencies. This is well, but it is not often possible to do this unless the number of books purchased is limited, or unless the librarian calls to his aid those who are competent to judge of the worth of a book.

By Julia G. Babcock

Her confidence and respect must first be won by some one who is genuinely interested in her and who has tact enough to direct her reading almost unconsciously. The yard stick of what the young girl ought to read cannot be applied to literature for adults.

As to technical and professional books, happy is the librarian who finds the expert in each to aid him in the selection of these books. He knows those which are most valuable in his special field and can suggest those which will be most useful to the library.

It is difficult to place the responsibility for the sickening increase of sex novels with which the market is flooded. It is easy to place the blame for many of the ills of the day upon "the war," and doubtlessly, it did have the effect of weakening the moral fiber of many, but it strengthened it in others. Why should the coarser brutalizing side of human life be depicted in glowing colors and forced upon an unwilling public, because forsooth, some explorer of life's sewers finds it exhilarating to depict it in detail? Drains and ditches are essentials of modern sanitation, and must be given careful consideration by experts on these matters, but they do not form a part of the conversation of polite society. However, we are repeatedly told that we must read certain unclean and distaste

ful books because "everybody is talking

about them."

can

on-Avon, and passed with veneration through Westminster Abbey. We were grateful to the speaker for sharing with us so vividly these pleasant privileges of travel.

Miss Ida Huntington of Stanislaus County Free Library, read a charming story couched in the guise of a fairy tale, entitled, "The sad and merry tale of a county library assistant." She discovered both pathos and good cheer in the daily doings of a librarian, visiting branches with the "library lady," going upon invitation even into the lions' den, where she assured us the lions "roared at them as gently as any sucking dove." Miss Huntington is author of "Peter Pumpkin in Wonderland," "The Garden of Heart's Delight" and other books for children.

California librarians should give special consideration to the books of those publishers who have thought it worth while to establish western depositories, for these books can be obtained much more quickly and with less expense than from the eastern publishing centers. I'm not sure but that we librarians owe a certain duty to these western dealers who make an effort to cater to the library trade. If the books which are on hand are shipped promptly, and shorts are accounted for and prompt endeaver made to supply them, we surely afford to wait for such items, in order to help build up in the west a worthy bookselling business. The more books we buy in the west, the more books will be supplied ready for our next orders. Moreover, the western publishers deserve our consideration. If they put out books that are worthy and that meet our needs, let us buy them. If there is anything wrong with them, let us tell them where the trouble lies. Perhaps it can be corrected. Librarians owe a duty not only to their particular field of work but to every line particular field of work but to every line of effort which tends to make a better state and therefore a finer nation.

On the other hand, we hear again and again, that "this book ought not to be in the library because it is not suitable for young girls to read." The jeune fille of today reads, by hook or by crook, just about what she wants to read, and if her taste for the finer things of life has not been cultivated, she can with difficulty be directed at this stage of her development.

LIBRARY NOTES

A round table discussion of library problems was led by Miss Mary Harris of the Fresno County Free Library. Miss Yager, children's librarian of the Fresno library, gave an excellent talk on "Work with Children," in which she spoke of the close personal contacts which are possible in the small branch library. The children's librarian can follow what Johnnie is reading from week to week and can help him on his way. The smaller collection of books can become better known, and library discipline is a negligible consideration. With the approval of the county superintendent of schools, stories are told by the children's librarian, in the school room, and talks about books and how to use a library are given to the boys and girls.

The meeting of the Fourth District of the California Library Association was held at Merced, in the Merced County Free Library, on April 27th. This district comprises the counties of Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Stanislaus, Tulare and Tuolumne.

Miss Margaret North Johnson, librarian of the Taft Branch of the Kern County Free Library, gave an informal talk on how to get people interested in reading more non-fiction. Her method is largely to place attractive books of these classes where people can find and examine them readily. Exposure to good literature is frequently all that is required to make it contagious. She told us of the request of the little girl whose mother wanted "a book about blood and thunder and love," and what she sent her to fill the demand. She emphasized the necessity for the librarian to be acquainted with her books, and of the failure of that librarian who devoted herself only to clerical and technical library work, to the neglect of the more important function of knowing books.

Miss Essae M. Culver, president of the district, presided, and about ninety members were present. The first address of the morning was by Miss Julia Steffa, librarian of Kings County Free Library. She shared with her audience "Peeps at literary shrines" which she had visited on a recent trip to Europe. As she carried us with her upon her literary pilgrimage, we stood in reverence in the little English cemetery in Rome, before the grave of Keats, and beside the ashes of Shelley. With her, we visited Abbotsford, and hurried past old Alloway Kirk. We made a brief sojourn in the Lake region, went down to Stratfordthe Lake region, went down to Stratford

Mrs. Isaacson, of the Madera County Free Library, led off in an interesting discussion of "reserve books." This brought out many ideas as to the value of filling special requests for fiction, and the methods used in some libraries to discourage this form of service, but on the whole the consensus of opinion was in favor of trying to meet every request of the library patron.

Luncheon was served at the Hotel El Capitan, where the tables were decorated with California poppies, emblem of the California Library Association, gathered by members of the Merced library staff. The bobbed and the unshorn were present and both became the subject of verbal attack. Indeed, one librarian who had been muchafflicted was heard to say that he didn't so much object to the bobbed head per se, as he did to the time that was spent talking about it after it was done. While the luncheon was not a hirsute performance, it was observable that there were both shapely heads and frightful examples present.

At the afternoon session, in the Elks' hall, not only librarians were present, but many of the Merced teachers, as the schools had been closed early that they might attend the meeting. Several fine vocal selections were sung by Mr. Albert Gillette of Merced.

Mr. Milton J. Ferguson, state librarian, gave what he chose to call "A Little Library Talk," but which proved to be a well-rounded address on the library of today and its problems. He said that the library system had grown and is going to continue to grow in spite of its competitors for popular favor, the motion picture and, more recently, the radio. He spoke of hearing, while at Yreka recently, a concert put on at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. While these interests compete with the library and do away to some extent with the reading of books, yet there is always a veneration for the printed word. One of the essentials to the success of library effort is the loyalty of library workers, not only to the work itself but to those who are leaders in it.

Dr. Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, president of Mills College, gave a magnetic address upon "The Spirit of American Criticism." She said that through such periodicals as the Century, the Dial, and the Atlantic, we know the interest in literary criticism. Criticism is intelligent comment upon literature, and is not necessarily adverse. Referring to a story just told by Mr. Ferguson of the eighteen-year-old boy, six feet, two in height and weighing one hundred and eighty-five pounds, who was obliged to give up his English in which he was doing well, in order to secure a sufficient number of credits in physical training to enable him to enter college, she said that it is the youthful spirit which has to be lassoed away from this delightful pursuit of fisticuffs to English. "One of the things," she said, "which is common your job and to mine is discrimination." Librarians are no longer pioneers, and the time is reached when the spirit of true criticism cannot take the place of the pioneer. She touched upon the philosophic criticism of Carlyle, of Ruskin, of William Morris, of the exquisiteness and joy which the latter brought into the problems of labor. She brought out the truth that the weakness in our library production is the weakness in our spiritual ideals. She made us see that the present trend of popular fiction does not mean that all life is devoid of high standards, but that it is just a picture of one little part of life today. As all life is built upon a higher plane, so will literary production advance.

to

The inspiration that comes to all library workers from such a meeting as this cannot be overestimated.

TEACHERS

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New Form of Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag

You are advised that representatives of sixty-eight patriotic organizations met in Washington, D. C., June 14, 1923, under the auspices of the National Americanism Commission of the American Legion, to draft an authentic code of flag etiquette. It was decided by the commission that the pledge of allegiance to the flag should hereafter read as follows:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

The California Federation of Women's Clubs, through its department of American Citizenship, has requested that all schools in the State of California use the amended flag salute hereafter. Will you kindly see that the accepted form of flag salute is used in your schools?

EAMES

221 E. 20th St., CHICAGO

I would also call your attention to the fact that a bulletin entitled "The FlagHow to Display It; How to Respect It" has been issued by the National Americanism Commission and can be had by addressing said commission at Indianapolis, Indiana. Every school should have a copy of this bulletin.

May I also urge that a small silk flag be displayed in every classroom in the public schools and that a large flag be hung in each auditorium?-From Bulletin No. 4, Will C. Wood, superintendent of public instruction.

Superintendent Lawrence E. Chenoweth of Kern county issued one of his keen, alert and comprehensive bulletins to his teachers on Bird and Arbor Day.

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