SEPTEMBER, 1932

ment of continuation, evening, and summer schools, and some appearance of use by smaller public high schools of correspondence courses.

A study of articulation of high school and college shows progress toward flexibility in the requirements for admission to higher institutions and improved arrangements for caring for the individual following admission.

Educational opportunity for the southern Negro is increasing, another study revealed.

Investigation was made of the administrative and supervisory staffs in State departments of education and in city systems having to do with secondary education as well as of administrative and supervisory officers within individual schools.

More schools will want to follow innovating practices in registration and schedule making unearthed in another project. Secondary school departments of research were found to be carrying on in

T

In 28 Monographs

HE NUMBERS and tentative titles of 28 monographs making up the report of the National Survey of Secondary Education, will be as follows: No. 1, Summary; No. 2, The Horizontal Organization of Secondary EducationA Comparison of Comprehensive and Specialized Schools; No. 3, Part-time Secondary Schools; No. 4, Secondary School Population; No. 5, Reorganization of Secondary Education; No. 6, Smaller Secondary Schools; No. 7, Secondary Education for Negroes; No. 8, District Organization and Secondary Education; No. 9, Legal and Regulatory Provisions Affecting Secondary Education; No. 10, Articulation of High School and College; No. 11, Administration and Supervision; No. 12, Selection and Appointment of Teachers; No. 13, Provisions for Individual Differences, Marking, and Promotion; No. 14, Programs of Guidance; No. 15, Research in Secondary Schools; No. 16, Interpreting the Secondary School To the Public; No. 17, The Secondary School Library; No. 18, Procedures in Curriculum-Making; No. 19, The Program of Studies; No. 20, Instruction in English; No. 21, Instruction in the Social Subjects; No. 22, Instruction in Science; No. 23, Instruction in Mathematics; No. 24, Instruction in Foreign Languages; No. 25, Instruction in Music and Art; No. 26, NonAthletic Extracurriculum Activities; No. 27, Intramural and Interscholastic Athletics; and No. 28, Health and Physical Education.

Policies and practices in school publicity were studied, and a great variety of promising practices in interpreting the schools to the public were uncovered.

For reference

In view of the fact that the survey has given its attention chiefly to serious efforts at innovation, readers of the 28 monograph reports will see passed in review the vast array of practices which have been introduced in order to effect improvement in our secondary schools. Specialists in charge of the various projects have gone as far as they can to indicate the practical utility of the innovations. Those in charge of the schools and teachers like to have the records and descriptions of the innovations before them and to be permitted to exercise their own judgment with respect to which of them they will themselves adopt or adapt in the different local situations.

Unlike Europe with its national centralization of control of education, we have as many systems of schools and centers of control as we have States. Most of the States have allowed their local systems a great deal of freedom to initiate and to experiment. At the same time that we, as a nation, have decentralization of control in education, we aim to foster in all these States the same ideals. How essential it is then for those responsible for the schools in one State to have made known to them the nature

of other States. This is the service of the survey. By examining its reports, those at work in any community or State in schools at the secondary level will be able to note the progress and trends at that level in all States and sections and will in consequence be able to give more comprehensive and systematic consideration to the next steps to be taken in improving their own practices.

"Fads and frills"

It is a frequent experience to find that during such periods of distress those features of the school that have last been added are among the first to go when resources decline. In such times these novel features are dubbed "fads and frills," when in fact they are often more necessary than the features not assailed which are retained because of the hold of tradition long after they have outlived their usefulness. should look carefully at the proposals to eliminate those latest developments in the schools. The report of the National Survey of Secondary Education will appear in time to be of aid in determining what sacrifices should be made.

We

Our Publications in Germany COPIES OF PRACTICALLY ALL Office of Education publications are included in the exhibit of American education at Mainz, Germany. Twenty rooms have been devoted to the exhibition of what the United States is doing in the field of education.

66

"ISHO

SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW what other school systems are doing to help the unemployed." Many letters to the Office of Education have repeated this request. The following article on how Atlanta schools are teaching the jobless to buy better food with their grocery orders was sent in by Supt. Willis T. Sutton. Forthcoming issues of SCHOOL LIFE will tell how some high schools are helping unemployed postgraduates; how rural schools are meeting the crisis; and lessons from England's experience.-EDITOR.

T

HE FIRST responsibility in meeting the present distress is to endeavor to get work for men or to provide "made work" for them.

In the meantime their families must be fed, and the grocery order given in the home, or through the mails, seems to be the means that most preserves the selfrespect of the recipient. These grocery orders have not specified what should or should not be purchased for the amount of money stated on the order because social workers feel that initiative should not be impaired by such dictation. But when the supply is limited, and the public's money is being used, it becomes necessary to tell those receiving aid how to buy the most for the sum allowed.

Reference cards

For this purpose social agencies in Atlanta, Ga., have furnished to clients reference cards to hang in the kitchen or to take to market. These cards tell how to get a balanced ration for a given sum of money. In one case $3.12 bought enough to sustain a family of three for one week.

From this simple start the idea was developed of endeavoring to educate our distressed people in better food values. The public schools readily responded to our call and organized 11 nutrition classes to be conducted in schools, health centers, churches, day nurseries, and other places most convenient to those who were asked to attend.

Ten lessons were planned by the demonstrators, using the same supplies furnished to clients on food orders. A sufficient quantity of each food demonstrated is prepared for sampling at each class meeting.

Each family desiring relief is given a text leaflet entitled "Feeding Your Family," which is used as a basis of each demonstration. A mimeographed sheet of the recipes demonstrated is also handed

to each attendant for reference at the meeting, and later at home.

At the start there were 11 centers, 7 for white people and 4 for colored and other clients who cared to attend. The average

weekly attendance has been 560, of whom 130 were white and 430 colored. Larger attendance at classes for white persons

has been encouraged. It is the responsibility of the home visitor of social agencies to promote attendance at the relief classes, both by mailed invitations or personal calls.

Study grocery orders

How are the demonstrations helping to educate persons to purchase more nutritious food? Only the biweekly analyses of grocery orders can determine what

changes are taking place in the character of food bought. From May 1 to June 11 there were decided increases noted per thousand orders in sweet milk, oatmeal,

peas and beans, potatoes, cheese, canned salmon, and fresh fish, with relative decreases in less nutritious foods.

In addition to these demonstrations, there is apparent need for training of idle men, women, and children in various home activities and industries that will keep them occupied and perhaps prove to be a source of some small supplemental income. Looking ahead to the more or less immediate and long-to-be-continued reduction of the working week, some such training seems to be needed.

Commissioner Cooper in Europe DR. WILLIAM JOHN COOPER, United States Commissioner of Education, had the honor of meeting the King and Queen of England at a garden party during his stay in London. He also attended the fourteenth international conference on secondary education and the international conference on commerHe was present at the Sixth World Concial education held in London in July. ference of the New Education Fellowship at Nice, France, in August. During his 8-week European stay, Commissioner Cooper met various ministers and leaders of education in many countries, studying at first hand their school systems.

Geographic News Bulletins REQUESTS CONTINUE to come to the Office of Education for the Geographic News Bulletins. These weekly sets of illustrated articles about peoples, places, and industries of news interest, published by the National Geographic Society, formerly were distributed by the United States Bureau of Education. They are now distributed direct by the National Geographic Society, and may be had upon request of teachers, on payment of 25 cents annually for the 30 weekly issues. It will facilitate handling of these requests if they are addressed to the National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C., instead of to the Office of Education.

Uncle Sam Helps Blind to Cook A COOKBOOK FOR THE BLIND has been prepared by the Library of Congress, and is available from any library for the blind in the country. (Price, 50 cents.) Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes, published 2 years ago by the Department of Agriculture and now out of print, is the first cookbook to be reproduced in Braille. All recipes included have been worked out and tested in the laboratories of the Bureau of Home Economics of the Department of Agriculture.

SEPTEMBER, 1932

If we save the life of one child, all the money and all the time and all the effort expended in the past or in the future will be well worth the effort and expense. HERBERT HOOVER

L

IVES of more than 6,000 school children in the United States will be lost as the result of accidents this school year. America's school-going population of 31,000,000 will figure in 723,000 accidents of various kinds, and the resultant loss from school will total approximately 3,000,000 days. Such are predictions based on accident statistics furnished by the National Safety Council.

A New England insurance firm, in a bulletin bearing the startling title, "Worse Than War," announces that "50,510 members of the American Expeditionary Forces were killed in action and died of wounds during 18 months of the World War, but a greater number, 50,900 persons, met death in automobile accidents during a recent 18-month period."

These predictions and revelations do not furnish a complete picture of the situation, however. Surveys show that 17 per cent of all persons injured in motor vehicle mishaps last year in the United States (166,600) were under 15 years of age, and nearly three times as many children between 5 and 14, as those under 5 years of age, were crushed to death by automobiles.

As student accident information accumulates, interest increases in the prevention of accidents to school children. What can our schools do to decrease this student accident and death rate?

Classroom education helps The American Automobile Association is doing much to promote safety education for school children. With the cooperation of motorists in 140 affiliated clubs in various sections of the United States, this organization supplies approximately 85,000 safety education lessons monthly to American classrooms. Fifty-thousand posters furnished by 157 motor clubs in 27 States stress safety. Schools ask for posters or lessons from the nearest club affiliated with the American Automobile Association. The American Automobile Association supplies the safety education material.

Since the motor death rate for persons of all ages advanced 98 per cent from 1922

to 1930, during which time the school-age automobile fatality rate increased but 4 per cent, it is believed that classroom safety instruction has been very effective. More than 28,000 lives of adults could be saved in one year, it is estimated, if accident-prevention work among grown-ups were as successful as it is among children.

Safety patrols

Very effective in guarding the lives of boys and girls while crossing streets going to and from schools is the School

"SAFETY EDUCATION," helps for schools in constructing a course of study in safety education, is a new Office of Education Bulletin (1932 No. 8, price 10 cents) prepared by Miss Florence C. Fox, specialist in elementary education. Superintendents, principals, and teachers should find this publication useful in setting up school safety education programs. Order from Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C.

boy Safety Patrol, also sponsored by the American Automobile Association and affiliated motor clubs. This protection, together with added safety instruction in the classroom, has been remarkably effective. Fewer school child accidents take place to-day between home and school than on the school grounds, or in the school building.

Safety patrols are organized through the cooperation of school officials, police, city officials, the press, and boys themselves who anticipate being members of the patrols. White Sam Browne belts or bright-colored felt arm bands, badges to denote rank, and poncho-type capes and rain hats for wet weather, are furnished to patrol members, who are selected for service because of good marks in studies and qualities of leadership. A patrol

7

consists of from 4 to 12 boys, depending upon the size of the school and the number of hazardous intersections which must be

guarded.

There are now 10,000 such safety patrol units in the United States enrolling boys who protect approximately 5,000,000 of their fellow school goers daily.

It is the duty of safety patrol members to be stationed at street intersections and

along school streets 20 minutes before the opening hour of school. They must be on duty until five minutes after the opening hour. Patrol boys escort children across the street in groups, and encourage them to cross streets only at intersections which are guarded. The boy guards frown upon jaywalking and report to their teacher or principal the names of children who wilfully disobey their directions.

Upon the approach of an automobile at a street intersection, the patrol boy on duty will hold up his hand to the approaching motorist, indicative of his desire to escort a group of children across the street in safety. After the motorist has stopped, children are safely escorted to the opposite curb. During recess, the patrol prevents boys and girls from running across or playing in the street. Patrol members are dismissed from class five minutes before class closing hour to go to their stations and remain on duty until 10 minutes after the closing hour.

For valor

Interest in the patrol movement is stimulated by the awarding of medals and certificates for satisfactory service and for exceptional acts of heroism on the part of school patrol boys while on duty. Last year 2,576 merit certificates were awarded by the American Automobile Association, and in the District of Columbia alone 196 medals were granted for meritorious service. Forty-two boys were cited for the actual saving of lives.

The morale of boy patrols can be increased by cooperation with city policemen. In Washington, D. C., the city superintendent of police detailed police officers from each precinct to supervise patrol operation. The policemen are trained in the operation of school-boy patrols, and frequently speak in the classrooms and school assemblies. One officer, John E. Scott, of Precinct No. 2, prepared a series of safety slides which have been (Continued on page 18)

LTHOUGH PROFESSORS do not wear headguards and deans do not sally forth in

A

cleated shoes, colleges and

universities often compete in the classroom field as vigorously, if not as violently, as they do on the football field.

Each graduate school strives to be superior to approximately 99 other graduate schools in everything from education to archæology. Colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts tend to become complete universities. State teachers colleges, in many cases, are striving to build up English departments and history departments beyond the point called for by the training of teachers, and strong enough to compete with similar departments in State universities.

This situation has become so serious that four States within three years have taken steps to consolidate their institutions of higher education. Their legislatures have said that competition can become war, and war is too expensive a luxury for education. Oregon three years ago, North Carolina a year ago, and Mississippi and Georgia last winter announced by law that the State's duties in higher education must be performed cooperatively instead of competitively.

Kentucky, South Carolina, and California are studying their publicly supported institutions of higher learning under survey microscopes. Other States, spurred on by the necessities of economy, are considering changes.

Winnebago and Xenia

The accompanying chart shows the status quo in the movement to unify State management of higher education. It does not show the steps by which the condition charted has been reached.

We can follow the steps best, perhaps, by noting the path of higher education in the mythical State of Winnebago.

Step 1. The early pioneers of Winnebago were loyal patrons of education and soon after the settlement of the State established, after a bitter legislative battle, the University of Winnebago, which gave courses that were not nearly as advanced nor as adequate as those now given in hundreds of Winnebago high

schools.

Step 2. The early pioneers, having also established 1-room schools, felt the need of staffing them with native citizen teachers, instead of importing teachers from Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Joined Hands

So the Winnebago legislature established a normal school in Xenia under a separate board of trustees.

Step 3. One normal school was not enough, and furthermore two or three other sections of the State felt they had just as much right to a normal school as Xenia. Therefore, the legislature established three other normal schools under separate boards of trustees.

Step 4. Because the Federal Government would help a State support a landgrant college for agricultural and mechanic arts, Winnebago, about 1877, established in Jonesboro the Winnebago Agricultural and Mechanical College.

Step 5. Winnebago gradually built up its State department of education because a greater measure of control over elementary and secondary education was gradually forced upon the State. It became obvious that if the State board of education were to assume the duty of insuring a better quality of education for all the State's children, then it should assume more direct control over the preparation of the teachers who were to teach the children. And, furthermore, the legislators were becoming weary of being button-holed by six or seven college presidents at every session. So all of Winnebago's normal schools were placed under the control of the State board of education in 1922.

Step 6. Although there are no mines in the State, the University of Winnebago, in the interests of academic respectability, established a School of Mines.

Step 7. Cities were raising requirements for teachers so the 2-year normal schools became 4-year teachers colleges giving many of the same liberal arts and science courses that are given both in the University of Winnebago and the Winnebago Agricultural and Mechanical College.

Step 8. The Xenia Teachers College has requested and has been granted the right to give the master's degree. This means that both Xenia and the University of Winnebago will be giving graduate

work in education.

tuition for all the University of Winnebago law students to study at a famous mid-western university and save the State money.

Signboards

At this puzzling crossroad two signboards have been erected by Dean Elwood P. Cubberley, historian of education.

One sign reads: "The early struggles of these institutions (of higher learning) at times developed intense loyalties and animosities, both among students and communities, which in time led to legislative lobbying for appropriations, buildings, support, and expansion at times not warranted by actual needs. The result has been conflicts between the land-grant colleges and the State universities which often have resulted in bitterness of feeling and intense rivalry in development; in strife among the normal schools and between them and the universities; at times in unnecessary duplication of instruction and a haphazard development of institutions; and in the creation of factional groupings of the people and their representatives in the legislature which have hampered the proper development of higher and special education within the State."1

The other sign reads: "Speaking generally, the best control and the control freest from political influences has come from local boards of regents or trustees deeply interested in the development of the particular institution under their care. Until centralized boards can be assured of freedom from political direction and control, and until they learn to embody in their procedures the best forms of corporation control, universities will be loath to give up their separate boards of control."

These two signs, although contraings to stop, look, and listen. dictory, are nevertheless helpful as warn

But higher education, like the rest of civilization, must move. Each State must choose the fork in the road along which it will send its institutions of higher

education.

Of the four States which have recently changed their policies, three-Georgia, Mississippi, and Oregon-have taken the course of consolidating all State institutions of higher education under the general

1 State School Administration by E. P. Cubberley, Boston, Mass., Houghton Mifflin Co., p. 345. Ibid., p. 349.