In St. Paul

Bureaucratic centralization, standardization and maternalism seemed to be the aims of the 28th annual Congress of Parents and Teachers, meeting at the University of Minnesota, in the City of St. Paul. For the second consecutive year the theme was Adult Home Education.

Dr. John James Tigert, U. S. Commissioner of Education, suggested a program "to take the school and college to every home." He pointed out that the vast majority failed to continue their education after leaving school. He proposed a coordination of the State Departments of Education, the American Library Association and the directors of university extension courses, with the Mothers and Parent-Teachers Associations. This coalition would be under the direction of the bureau of which he is the head.

According to Mrs. A. H. Reeve, of Philadelphia, President of the Congress, these agencies should give courses to help the vast majority who "stumble along the beaten track of parenthood by the uncertain light of their own experience." Said she:

"These courses should include such topics as purchasing of food and clothing, budgeting of time and strength, non-technical instruction in the laws of hygiene, the inspiration of exercise, the technique of rest; home-furnishing and color-values; art appreciation and a discriminating taste in literature; the history of music and musicians; psychology in graded lessons; poetry--the very best, but what people really do like, not what they should like from the standpoint of a technician or a modernist ... a university course in training for parenthood, which shall include the mental, moral and physical education of children from earliest infancy through the high school age, to be supplemented by graded reading courses and required theses."

Miss Charl O. Williams, field secretary of the National Educational Association, denounced the opposition to the proposed Federal Department of Education as coming from private and parochial schools and privately endowed universities. Said she:

"In the last six years I have crossed the continent six times and in one year I have been in 25 states. I believe that I am in a position to draw conclusions as to the good working of the prohibition amendment and I assert that there are more children in the schools than there ever were before the dry law."

The Convention ended by endorsing Law Enforcement, the proposed Federal Department of Education, the proposed Women's Peace Conference, and expressing condemnation of the "filming" of salacious books and the subjection of children and animals "to cruel circumstances in the making of films."