lege and university, current expense, $500.1

Costs per school day per child in public elementary school, 39 cents; in high school, 80.9 cents. Cost per hour per child in public elementary school, 7.8 cents; in high school, 16 cents. Cost per hour per class (average of 39 elementary pupils), $3.04; (average of 25 high-school pupils), $4.

Of these costs 75 per cent are for providing instruction by trained teachers and supervisors.

How we spend our money

Discussions of the cost of education always raise the question of how America spends its income. It is interesting to note that:

The average annual expenditure for operating a small pleasure car is approximately $700.

The average annual expenditure for educating a child in public elementary schools is less than a tenth of the cost of running a car.

T

HIS YEAR the Office of Education starts on a new program in collecting and reporting statistics. Since its beginning

in 1867, one of the most important tasks of the office has been the collection of statistics of education on a national scale. During the years this load has increased, until last year that part of the office's work alone involved the tabulation of more than 60,000 inquiry forms for 25 statistical reports, resulting in more than a thousand pages of print.

Efforts to improve these statistical reports are continuous. In the first place, securing truly national statistics is a difficult matter, and one of slow, painstaking development, since the reports from States, -WILLIAM DOW BOUTWELL. cities, and individual institutions are

voluntary, except for those from landgrant institutions. However, every year shows a gain toward completeness. For example, 300 more private high schools and academies reported for this past biennium than for the previous one. Also, all but two of the institutions existing primarily for the training of teachers were present in this report. Other fields showed similar gains.

Another effort toward completeness is that of securing statistics of educational agencies and institutions and activities which heretofore have not been reported on a national scale. For example, this past year reports were received from more than 6,000 private elementary schools, furnishing information concerning the educational provisions for more than 1,800,000

Studies Planned

AMONG THE SPECIAL STUDIES planned for this year are: Economic Outlook in Higher Education; Effect of the Depression on Rural Schools; Education in Foreign Countries During the Depression; Grade Enrollments in City School Systems; Statistics of Small Cities; Per Capita Costs in City Schools; Special Schools and Classes in City Schools; Statistics of Rural Schools in Selected Counties; Negro Education, 1928-1932; Cost of Textbooks; and Expenditures in Liberal Arts Colleges.

elementary children for whom only meager information has so far been available.

Since many of the statistical reports have been issued as parts of the Biennial Survey of Education, the statistical load has tended to become top-heavy in the alternate years. The new program arranges the statistical studies in rotation, evening up the load, making it possible to publish reports more promptly, and leaving time for more studies of special problems.

We have now classified our statistical studies as of three types: (1) Those which will be issued biennially, (2) those to be issued less often than every two years, but nevertheless regularly; and (3) special and occasional studies which will be undertaken as the situation demands. The following table shows the plan as mapped out through 1937-38.

-BESS GOODYKOONTZ.

. 25

.

City

X

PRICE TO MEET THE EMERGENCY..

1930-31 1931-32 X 1932-33 1933-34 X 1934-35

x (Elem.)

Abridged *

X

Per capita costs.. Abridged....

Per capita costs..

Per capita costs...

1939-40 X

Abridged....

X

*** See others listed below.

"LE

EST WE FORGET." This is the keynote set for American Education Week, November 7th to 13th. Lest we in the darkness of depression forget the story of our forefathers' struggle to give their children adequate education, schools are urged to tell the story once again.

The words of the following drama of the rise of education in America are not fiction. They are the eye-witness accounts. Each vivid word picture lifts the curtain on education in some period during the last 170 years. The quotations may be of use in connection with the preparation of addresses. They may suggest ideas for the planning of pageants or programs devoted to the rise of education in the United States.

Act I: Cape Cod-1760

The Deacon left an illuminating account of his experiences as a pupil in the pre-Revolutionary schools of Yarmouth. He says that the teacher "was generally placed in a great chair, at a large table before a large fireplace. When he entered, every scholar must make a bow. The master would make a short prayer. The Bible class was then called out to read one chapter, standing in a half circle behind the master. He would meantime be employed making pens, etc., while each scholar would mention the number and read one verse, while some might be playing pins and others matching coppers. Then the Psalter class read in the same manner... The master would be writing copies, setting sums, making and mending pens, etc., while nearly all the scholars would be playing or idle. The most forward in

in Five Acts

arithmetic might do one or two sums in a day, if they could do them without the master's assistance; he gave me one sum in the single rule of three, which I could not resolve for two or three days; after requesting him a number of times to inform me, he would reply he had no time, and I must study the answer. From "Cape Cod-Its People and Their History," by HENRY C. KITTREdge.

Act II: Connecticut-1800

I was about six years old when I first went to school. My teacher was "Aunt Delight," a maiden lady of fifty, short and bent, of sallow complexion and solemn aspect. We were all seated upon benches made of slabs-boards having the exterior or rounded part of the log on one side. As they were useless for other purposes, they were converted into school benches, the rounded part down. They had each four supports, consisting of straddling wooden legs set into auger holes.

The children were called up one by one to Aunt Delight, who sat on a low chair, and required each, as a preliminary, "to make his manners," which consisted of a small, sudden nod. She then placed the spelling-book before the pupil, and with a pen-knife pointed, one by one, to the letters of the alphabet, saying "What's that?"

I believe I achieved the alphabet that summer. Two years later I went to the winter school at the same place kept by Lewis Olmstead-a man who made a business of ploughing, mowing, carting manure, etc., in the summer, and of teaching school in the winter. He was a celebrity in ciphering, and Squire Seymour declared that he was the greatest "arithmeticker" in Fairfield County. There was not a grammar, a geography, or a history of any kind in the school. Reading, writing, and arithmetic were the

only things taught, and these very indifferently-not wholly from the stupidity of the teacher, but because he had forty scholars, and the custom of the age required no more than he performed.SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. From "Old Time Schools and School Books" by Clifton Johnson.

Act III: Georgia-1832

THE SCHOOLMASTERS

To an aged middle Georgian the oldfield schoolmaster of his childhood, as he now recalls him, seems to have been somewhat of a myth, or at least a relic of a long past decedent race, never existing except in a few individuals unlike any others of human mold, appearing during periods in rural communities, bringing in a red-spotted bandanna handkerchief his household goods, and in his tall, whitishfurred, long-experienced hat a sheet of foolscap, on which was set down what he called his "school articles." A rather reticent man was he to begin with, generally serious, sometimes even sad looking, as if he had been a seeker of things occult and was not content with the results of his quest. Within some months, seldom completing the year, with the same bandanna and hat, noiseless as he had come, he went his way. Generally he was unmarried, or, what was not so very far different, followed by a wife unique looking as himself, if possible some nearer a blank, who had never had the heart to increase the family any further. After his departure came on another, who might be larger and might be smaller, who might be fairer and might be browner, who might be more pronounced in manner and speech and might be less, but who had the distinctive marks that were worn by no other people under the sun.

Now the idea that a native-born citizen competent to instruct children would have

been content to undertake such a work was not entertained. Somehow, keeping a school was regarded as at the bottom on the list of vocations.

THE SCHOOLHOUSE

A place was selected on the edge of a wood and in a field turned out to fallow, sufficiently central, hard by a spring of purest fresh water, a loghouse was put up, say 30 by 25 feet, with one door and a couple of windows and shelves, with benches along the unceiled walls, and the session began. Most families breakfasted about sunrise, and brisk walk of threequarters of an hour brought even remotest dwellers to the early opening.

STUDYING ALOUD

Besides

The fashion of studying aloud in schools, now so curious to recall, did not produce the confusion which those not accustomed to it would suppose. the natural desire to avoid punishment, rivalries were often very active, particularly among girls, and during the time devoted wholly to study, there were few who did not make reasonable effort to prepare for recitation. Spellers, readers, geographers, grammarians, getters-byheart, all except cipherers, each in his or her own tongue and tone, raised to height sufficient to be clearly distinguished from others by individual ears, filled the room and several square rods of circumambient space outside. In this while the master, deaf to the various multitudinous sounds, sat in his chair, sometimes watching for a silent tongue, at others, with lack-luster eyes gazing through the door into the world beyond, perhaps musing when and where, if ever in this life, this toiling, fighting, migratory, isolated, and about friendless career would find respite.

Act IV: Middletown-1925

The school, like the factory, is a thoroughly regimented world. Immovable seats in orderly rows fix the sphere of activity of each child. For all, from the timid 6-year-old entering for the first time.

to the most assured high-school senior, the general routine is much the same. Bells divide the day into periods. For the 6-year-olds the periods are short (15 to 25 minutes) and varied; in some they leave their seats, play games, and act out make-believe stores, although in "recitation periods" all movement is prohibited. As they grow older the taboo upon physical activity becomes stricter, until by the third or fourth year practically all movement is forbidden except the marching from one set of seats to another between periods, a brief interval of prescribed exercise daily, and periods of manual training or home economics once or twice a week. There are "study-periods" in which children learn "lessons" from "textbooks" prescribed by the State and "recitation periods" in which they tell an adult teacher what the book has said; one hears children reciting the battles of the Civil War in one recitation period, the rivers of Africa in another, the "parts of speech" in a third; the method is much the same.

With high school come some differences; more "vocation" and "laboratory" work varies the periods. But here again the lesson-textbook-recitation method is the chief characteristic of education. For nearly an hour a teacher asks questions and pupils answer, then a bell rings, on the instant books bang, powder and mirrors come out, there is a buzz of talk and laughter as all the urgent business of living resumes, momentarily for the children, notes and "dates" are exchanged, five minutes pass, another bell, gradual sliding into seats, a final giggle, a last vanity case snapped shut, "In our last lesson we had just finished"-and another class is begun.-From "Middletown," by ROBERT S. LYND and HELEN MERRELL LYND.

Act V: New York-1932

Is this a schoolhouse, this great, sunlit home? These cheerful rooms-walls colorful with children's paintings, floors spotted with bright rugs, light, movable tables, and comfortable chairs-are these classrooms? Groups of children engaged in animated conversation are these classes? Is this the assembly room of a school, or is it a children's theater?

The new school is different-different in atmosphere, housing, furniture; different in its basic philosophy and psychology; different in the rôle that it assigns to pupil and teacher initiative.

For the new school is a child's world in a child's-size environment. Here he lives in a democracy of youth. His needs, his interests, as well as adult insight concerning his future life, determine what goes on in this school.

Picture, then, children who can not get to school early enough, and who linger about the shops, laboratories, yards, and libraries until dusk or urgent parents drag them homeward. Observe these busy and hard-working youngsters who seem to play all day, who do not seem to have lessons and recitations, yet who do not wait for teachers to make assignments. * * *

Here is a group of 6 and 7 year olds. They dance; they sing; they play house and build villages; they keep store and take care of pets; they model in clay and sand; they draw and paint, read and write, make up stories and dramatize them; they work in the garden; they churn, and weave, and cook.

In another building we come across a shop where one is wiring a doll house for electric lights and another is making rough-and-ready reflectoscopes. Over all the walls are blueprints, maps, and posters, and models of things made and in the making-ships, steam engines, cars, airplanes, submarines, sets for scenes, and even the swords and bucklers of medieval armor. From "The Child-Centered School," by HAROLD O. RUGG and ANN SHUMAKER.

and 72 men. An investigation was made of social status, work record, economic status, home conditions, court record, religious affiliations, and recreational interests.

Marriage and employment

First of all, we find that 48 of the 50 girls, and 48 of the 72 boys have married, and that 75 of these 96 have 173 children. The problem of destiny has thus been doubled and tripled. The responsibility for one life has become a responsibility for 2 or 3 or 4 lives. Social and economic efficiency becomes an increasingly crucial matter.

Three-fourths of the group seem to have been equal to the challenge, for "45 of the men are self-supporting, and in 9 other cases the wife also contributes to the family budget, making a total of 54 economically independent men. Thirty women are supported by their husbands and 5 others are also working to increase the income a total of 35 women not dependent on social aid. This makes 89 out of 122 who are financially independent. Fourteen other men and the husbands of 9 women only partially support themselves, due largely to the present business conditions. Four men and the husbands of two women have never had a steady job. The two unmarried women have regular work but live with their parents, and two women are supported by widows' pensions." This is certainly not a picture of destitution or of social dependence. When one adds to it the facts that 17 men and 20 women own or are buying their homes, and that 15 other men and 4 women have savings accounts, many of us will find it necessary to revise earlier ideas regarding the capabilities of the intellectually subnormal children of our great educational family.

Types of employment

"About one-half of the men get their livelihood in factories, in railroad yards and shops, and in the shipyards. Among these a few have attained positions somewhat superior to that of the usual worker. For example, 3 are tally-keepers, 1 is an inspector of insulators and supervises a small gang of men, 1 is a ship's rigger, another an electric welder, and 2 others are sheet-metal workers. Among the men with other occupations, 8 have somewhat superior work: 2 own and manage their own stores, 4 are clerks, 1 is a barber, and 1 was a prohibition agent until domestic trouble forced him to resign.

"Of the 50 women only 12 are working at present, but an analysis of their work records shows that 26 have worked in factories, 8 worked as domestics, 12 helped at home until marriage, 1 was a filing clerk, 1 has a beauty shop, 1 runs a printing press, and 1 works in the market."

What of the 22 children who had the lowest average IQ of 61? Have they also become self-supporting? One might reasonably expect a larger amount of dependency among them than in the other two groups. Yet even here it is gratifying to find that, of the 17 of this group who were located in 1931, "8 men are supporting themselves and that 4 women have married economically adequate husbands. The other 5 are being helped by their families and by community funds."

The story of John is one example. In 1914 John showed many delinquent traits. There was a family history of feeble-mindedness, insanity, and immorality. He spent 4 years in the first grade, but fortunately, after 6 months in the second grade he was assigned to the ungraded class. Here he remained for 31⁄2 years under the guidance of an understanding and skillful teacher. At 14 John secured a work permit and for almost 10 years he has been working steadily and successfully as a responsible inspector with a salary of $30 a week. He is proud of the fact that the company sent for him while he was at home for a few days on sick leave, because several hundred dollars' worth of material was spoiled during his absence. "I was no good in school," he says, "but when I got married I knew I'd got to work and I went right at it. I knew I'd got to dig out." There has been no further delinquency, but he does infrequently indulge in a spree. Through his interest in athletics he has learned to read the newspapers, but he can write only his

name.

Mary was one of the girls in this group. Her family background was one of immorality and there seemed to be every probability that Mary would follow in her mother's footsteps. She, too, was a member of the ungraded class for several years. After she left school to go to work, she kept in touch with her teacher, whose influence was no doubt one of the most wholesome factors in her development. She has married a rather thrifty factory worker. They own their home. She is a good mother to their three children, is interested in a club, in the parent-teacher association, and is deeply religious.

It would be too much to expect that all our young hopefuls-considered almost hopeless in 1914—would turn out so well. There is Jane who in 1914 was reported as "restless, untruthful, unable to read or write or do errands, but very industrious and neat. She was later given an opportunity to work as a maid in a hospital dispensary where she proved to be a good cleaner but somewhat of a liability because of her hysterical tantrums and petty thievery. Since her husband, a moron, lost his job as a baker early in 1930, they and their 4 children have been constantly supported by the Family Welfare

Association. Jane continues to be unstable under difficulties, and has made several impulsive suicidal attempts which required a recent temporary commitment to a State hospital."

School and the police

All three groups show other examples of instability, of delinquency, of alcoholism, or illegitimacy and prostitution. Such examples are found in every stratum of society, and are supposed to be particularly frequent among the feebleminded. Their occurrence among these 122 young people has been so much less frequent than one might expect that the situation is noteworthy. No doubt one reason why so few cases from the whole district find their way into juvenile court lies in the fact that many misdemeanors are settled out of court-by parents, policemen, and industrial concerns through the medium of the school.

There was the case of broken windows in an industrial plant over the week end. On Monday morning the head of the firm called at Public School No. 76 and stated the facts. The policeman was summoned. "A call for the leaders of the gang was broadcast throughout the school. They appeared and told of a stone fight that had resulted in the damage. They dragged forth the younger children who had taken part in the fun. Fathers and mothers were sent for and the afternoon was given up to an informal inquiry into the facts. The owner of the factory was asked to get an estimate of the cost of replacement from a local hardware firm. He did so and a bill was submitted to each boy. The windows were replaced, the fathers took their respective bills and settled them, and after that they probably settled with their sons. There was no court action but a general agreement among parents that they did not want the name of Locust Point and School No. 76 dragged into court."

This attitude on the part of the parents is a matter of pride to them. They were the ones who persistently demanded a new building for School No. 76. They were the ones who asked that the new building contain shops in which their children could be trained to get better jobs and a gymnasium that could be used by the grown-ups at night as well as be the children during the day. They were the ones who asked why their children were being trained only to go to high school when many of them must go to work as soon as they finished the grades. And this interest of theirs came only as a result of years of effort on the part of the principal of the school to build up s community educational enterprise. They have learned that it is their school, and they are proud to be identified with it and to keep its record bright.