ОСТОВЕР, 1932

Public School No. 76, then, as the center of community interest, must stand high among the influences that have contributed to the wholesome development of the boys and girls of whom in 1914 little was expected. Socially minded principal and teachers, their kindly interest in the lives of their patrons, their counsel and their help have brought from the people whom they serve an answering loyalty and a determination to make the most of themselves and of their children.

Add to this the coordination of effort that has existed among all the educational and social agencies operating within the community, and one can understand why many of these children have gone far beyond expectations. The utilization of the city park as a school and community playground affords recreation that keeps old and young together. Supervision by the Labor Bureau of those who secure work permits serves to keep industry in touch with the school. Activities of the Family Welfare Association are intimately related to the social work of the school. Cooperation which the police and the juvenile court give is clearly indicated in the story of the broken windows.

A

TOTAL KINDERGARTEN enrollment of 725,000 children is reported by the several States for 1930. With 40,000 more in private kindergartens, a third of the 4- and 5-year-old children living in cities are attending kindergarten. Practically all public-school kindergartens are located in cities, and most of the major cities have made the kindergartens an integral part of their school programs, according to Mary Dabney Davis, Office of Education specialist in Nursery-Kindergarten-Primary Education.

In Nebraska the kindergarten enrollment reported constitutes 80 per cent of the 4- and 5-year-old city population. Michigan, Maine, California, Nevada, Iowa, Arizona, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have more than 50 per cent of their city children attending kindergartens regularly.

The proportion of all the 4- and 5-yearold children in both city and rural dis

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tricts of each of 39 States enrolled in kindergartens is as follows: 52 per cent in Michigan; 40 to 50 per cent in the District of Columbia and California; 30 to 40 per cent in New Jersey and Connecticut; 25 to 30 per cent in Maine, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois; 20 to 25 per cent in Rhode Island, Nevada, New York, and Iowa; 15 to 20 per cent in Colorado, Massachusetts, Arizona, Ohio, and Kansas; 10 to 15 per cent in New Hampshire, Missouri, and Indiana; 5 to 10 per cent in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Washington, Oklahoma, and South Dakota; less than 5 per cent in Kentucky, Georgia, Texas, Montana, Delaware, Vermont, Virginia, North Dakota, Utah, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Alabama and Idaho report no kindergarten enrollment. Complete data are not available for eight States.

We

PER CENT 35 40 45

78.0

70.0

All these agencies working together consistently and persistently should be powerful stabilizing influences in the life of any community. There is no scientific proof that they have been so in Locust Point. have only the evidence of a group of children who in 1914 "were expected to be shiftless, alcoholic, of low wage-earning capacity, and dependent on charitable organizations for support" developing in an unusually constructive environment into men and women evincing a somewhat remarkable degree of stability.

It is so easy to cover our failure to provide for the subnormal child with the excuse, "He'll never amount to anything anyway." It is so easy, too, to explain the delinquency of the feeble-minded with the statement, "Well, you couldn't expect anything different from a feebleminded person." If the experience at Locust Point holds true, if similar experiences that have taken place in colonies for the mentally deficient and in socially directed school systems hold true, then both of these statements are utterly false and utterly unworthy of anyone who presumes to be an educator of youth.

The subnormal in our schools can be salvaged, they can become respectable, self-supporting citizens, they can make a contribution in their own way to the community. Whether they will do so or not depends upon those who have it in their power to mold a constructive environment for them or to disregard their environmental needs; to help them fight the battles of life or to make them victims

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P

OSTERS, pictures, charts, pamphlets, books, records, study outlines, and other materials for classroom use, for the school bulletin board, for exhibits, for teachers' meetings and institutes, and for work with parents, are available from a number of organizations. That classroom teachers and supervisors may know where to secure these reference and supplementary teaching materials, this directory of materials available from noncommercial organizations has been compiled by the Office of Education.

Complete lists of publications may be obtained by applying directly to the organizations. The materials range from publications on handicraft from the Boy Scouts of America and design plates of Indian symbols, bead work, basketry, and so forth, from the Woodcraft League of America to suggestions for handling behavior problems of school children from the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. It includes color plates of birds from the American Nature Association and the National Audubon Societies; and graded lists of children's books from the American Library Association.

The Federal Office of Education and other Government agencies publish useful school material which is listed each month in SCHOOL LIFE, official monthly journal of the office.

Material obtainable free of charge is designated by F; that for which there is a charge, by C. Additional copies of this chart are available free from the Office of Education.

By ROWNA HANSEN *

Name of organization or agency

American Association of University Women, 1634 Eye St., NW., Washington, D. C...

American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, 1537 35th St., NW., Washington, D. C...

American Child Health Association, 450 Seventh Ave., New York, N. Y.

American Federation of Organizations for Hard of Hearing, Inc., 1537 35th St., NW., Washington, D. C.. American Forestry Association, 1727 K St., NW., Washington, D. C.

American Foundation For the Blind, 125 E. 46th St., New York, N. Y

American Geographical Society, Broadway at 156th St., New York City..

Association for Childhood Education, 1201 16th St., NW., Washington, D. C..

American Posture League, 1 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y.

Better Homes in America, 1635 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, D. C.

Big Brother and Big Sister Federation, Inc., 425 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y

Boy Scouts of America, 2 Park Ave., New York, N. Y. Camp Fire Girls, 41 Union Square, New York, N. Y.. Child Study Association of America, 221 W. 57th St., New York, N. Y.

Child Welfare Committee of America, Inc., 1 E. 104th St., New York, N. Y.

Child Welfare League of America, Inc., 130 E. 22d St., New York, N. Y.

Elizabeth McCormick Memorial, 848 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill..

Junior Red Cross Association, American National Red Cross, Washington, D. C.

Knights of King Arthur, Lock Box 169, Boston, Mass. National Association of Audubon Societies, 1775 Broadway, New York, N. Y

National Child Welfare Association, 70 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y.

Why Kindergartens? EXPERIMENTS show that children with kindergarten experience have higher achievement records and greater "educational age" than children without it.

Kindergarten children have less tendency to reversals in reading, a common obstacle in learning to read, which causes failure of many first-grade children who do not have kindergarten training.

For the child speaking a foreign language at home, the kindergarten is especially helpful.

N. Y.

National Committee for Mental Hygiene, 450 Seventh Ave., New York, N. Y

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National Federation of Day Nurseries, 244 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y

National Geographic Society, 16th & M Sts., NW., Washington, D. C..

National Organization for Public Health Nursing, 450 Seventh Ave., New York, N. Y

National Probation Association, 450 Seventh Ave., New York, N. Y

National Recreation Association, 315 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y

National Safety Council, One Park Ave., New York,

OCTOBER, 1932

W

ITHOUT JOBS and without money, thousands of high-school graduates have returned to school. The army of unemployed graduates knock ing at the high-school door numbers, it is estimated, 100,000.

What can a principal do when the boy he launched on life last spring turns up this fall with a hard luck tale? How can the high schools help?

The urgency of the post-graduate problem was disclosed by answers to a letter from United States Commissioner of education William John Cooper, asking what schools were doing to help the unemployed. Many cities reported three to four times as many post-graduates as there were a few years ago. The number of post-graduates in high school has increased 800 per cent in the last 10 years.

Two ways of receiving old students back to high school prevail. Some schools simply let them take their places with other pupils in the classes. Finding themselves out of step with the march of undergraduate life, many post-graduates in such schools soon drop out.

Assets

The other way is to make the postgraduate welcome, adapt the school program to the new problem of his presence, and help him save himself from becoming a wandering, disheartened, jobless derelict.

To the school administrator who hesitates to take on any additional duties in this time of retrenchment it can be said that many schools are finding it possible to make the jobless post-graduate an asset rather than a liability to their budgets. Where schools are under-staffed the postgraduates have been pressed into service as secretaries, as assistants to teachers struggling with large classes, as assistant coaches, and as helpers in janitorial or lunch-room service. Since post-graduates are usually eager ambitious boys and girls, they are frequently glad to render a return in this way for the privilege of receiving more education. In Minneapolis many post-graduates help in the school lunch

rooms.

Splendid workers

Not only do post-graduates in this way help out the principal, but they also fit better into the school world. Larger responsibilities give them a status above the

rank of pupil and help them keep their self-respect.

A number of superintendents in their replies to the Office of Education stressed the point that post-graduates enrolled in their schools have done splendid work. L. N. McWhorter, assistant superintendent of schools in Minneapolis, where 505 graduate students were enrolled last semester, wrote that they worked "with determination and purpose."

"The most notable achievement of the local high school," according to Superintendent Weiss of Bethlehem, Pa., "was the work done by the unemployed men and women students."

Lessons by mail

Since most post-graduate students return for a definite purpose, principals with experience in handling them recommend that thay be allowed as much freedom as possible. The school that helps them to work "under their own steam" toward their objectives renders them the largest service. The counseling service of a school will probably prove of more assistance to the jobless post-graduates eager for help, than to the regular

pupils.

Use of correspondence courses has been found helpful. Benton Harbor, Michigan, has enrolled a number of former highschool graduates in correspondence courses, Superintendent Mitchell reports. Other cities are relying on this type of learning whereby several courses may be taken by students under the supervision of one teacher. The selection of studies can be more varied in a school using correspondence than in one that does not.

or

Since practically every State has wellprepared extension courses, superintendents will do well to look into the possibility of calling upon State universities to provide extension work locally. Extension courses generally blend with college work, and should be especially popular for post-graduates anticipating college university attendance. At Gary, Ind., the extension department of the University of Indiana occupying local school buildings has proved a great boon to highschool graduates who want more training but can not afford to go away from home for it. A helpful guide to extension courses offered by 443 colleges and universities is "College and University Extension Helps in Adult Education 1928-29," Bulletin 1930 No. 10, by L. R. Alderman, Federal Office of Education specialist

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in adult education. (Superintendent of Documents, 10 cents.)

Fewer public-school enrollments of postgraduates have been reported in cities which have junior colleges. This fact raises the question: "Are public high schools becoming junior colleges?" Since this type of college is the next step above the secondary school on the educational ladder, many would probably answer yes. Post-graduates are calling upon high schools to give "junior college" service where there is no junior college. The junior college at Norfolk, Nebr., operated by public schools, has taken care of many post-graduates. At Parsons, Kans., Superintendent Hughes says "the most effective work done in his community by schools for relief of unemployment has been through the junior college and the upper units of the high school." The last graduating class from the junior college in the latter city was twice as large as it was the year before. Other junior college enrollments have shown decided increases in recent years.

A number of cities are allowing overflow enrollments of post-graduates to attend night schools. From Huntington, W. Va., comes the statement that "we are taking care of 2,100 pupils in our high school that was designed for 1,200. We have been forced to operate double sessions." Day

sessions became so crowded in Parkersburg, W. Va., that night schools were established last semester.

Placement

Provision for placement of post-graduate students in positions is of first importance. A number of cities have established very successful student placement bureaus, although this practice is not as yet widespread and could be provided in many more instances.

Very timely and useful to those seeking help on the problem of the high school post-graduate is "Educational Opportunities Provided for Post-Graduate Students in Public High Schools," by Dr. Einar W. Jacobsen, Contributions to Education No. 523, available from the Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Jacobsen very clearly defines the post-graduate problem, the provisions made by public high schools for post-graduate students, the needs of post-graduate students and ways of meeting the needs of the former graduates.

-JOHN H. LLOYD.

AMERICAN EDUCATION constantly progresses. One hundred and fifty years ago only reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, and the Bible were taught in our schools. To-day one city announces that its 150 schools offer 3,000 courses in approximately 600 subjects.

Probably one does not fully appreciate the exceptional educational opportunities offered in most of our cities. A glance at the guidebook "Educational Opportunities of Greater Boston," a publication of the Prospect Union Educational Exchange which lists the 600 or more courses mentioned above, shows the result of educational progress since the time of the three R's.

Boston's educational Baedeker lists

courses as Americanization, arts, crafts, civil-service preparation, commerce and finance, engineering, expression, home

making, languages and literature, law,

library science, physical education, recreation, science and mathematics, social

sciences, textiles, trades, and preparatory courses. Subjects range from automobile driving to watchmaking-from argumentation to wrestling.

This increase in about 150 years in

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number of educational courses offered by And let the cool, velvet dust

one city to 600 or more branches of learning, is typical of our endeavor through education to prepare ourselves for more complete living in an ever changing world.

SERVICE CONTINUED

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHIES covering practically every phase of education will be published regularly in Elementary School Journal and the School Review beginning with the January issues, it has been announced. This new feature of both journals will continue a service begun in the

Cling to my feet.

-MAURICE ATKINSON,
Polytechnic High School,
Long Beach, Calif.

MAURICE ATKINSON was outstanding in high school in oratory and debate and won the southern California oratorical championship, in 1932, in a world problem contest. His other interests are literature, economics, and political science. In the "Scholastic" contest this year he was awarded second prize in book reviews. He is now attending Long Beach Junior College. Idyll is reprinted from "Acacia," the literary publication of the Polytechnic High School. Selected for SCHOOL LIFE by Nellie B. Sergent.

ROADS AND SCHOOLS

"EVERY ACCELERATION in road construction is marked by a corresponding decrease in the number of one-room schools," according to a comparative analysis of school and highway data recently made by the American Road Builders' Association and reported in New Mexico's state highway department magazine.

North Carolina, had 1,714 miles of improved highway and 2,989 one-room schools in 1924. By 1930 the State had increased its first-class highway mileage to 4,025, and decreased single room schools to 1,400.

Indiana, in 1924 had 3,452 one-room schools and only 911 miles of first class highways. In 1930 the number of such schools had dropped to 2,050, while good road mileage had increased to 3,137.

In Virginia, Alabama and South Carolina, the three other States surveyed, there was a gain of 2,726 miles in improved highways, a decrease of 1,876 in the number of one-room schools.