N. E. A.

It was the 64th annual convention of the National Education Association, but in such a setting as few of the delegates had ever seen before. It was in Philadelphia, where stately domes and towers of light have risen to commemorate the courage, wisdom and virtue of the country's founding fathers. President Mary McSkimmon of Brookline, Mass., greeted the multitude, some 14,000 of the Association's 161,000 membership.* She ran up and down the Association's keyboard of aims and ideals, sounding the familiar chords with great spirit and accuracy. Education had accomplished much in the U. S. From coast to coast, every 100 miles, were schools full of contented children. Child labor must stop. There must be a Federal Department of Education, the appointment of a Secretary of Education in the Cabinet. Superintendent William McAndrew of Chicago's schools was on hand, full of vim and vigor. He most appropriately traced the effect of the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence on the development of the public school idea. "Some of us," said he, "love to deck ourselves in academic confectioneries, but the old breeze of American ridicule will save us from carrying our mortar boards too high. . . . Do you know of any place where rich and poor, black and white, clean and dirty, can come nearer to equal rights than in the American schoolroom?" Philadelphia's superintendent, Dr. Edwin C. Broome, took the floor to state that the U. S. school had never been so advanced as today, that talk of the "good old days" was nonsense in educational circles, as proved merely by comparing the marks made by present-day pupils with marks made by pupils of 1845 on identical tests. He deplored the burden laid upon the teacher by the legislator, comparing the public school to the public hospital: "Does the public attempt to decree what surgical instruments and medicine shall be used?" (His listeners thought of anti-Evolution bills.) "Akin to this problem is that of the benevolent exploitation of the schools by well-meaning but often misguided organizations and individuals." (Listeners wondered who or what he could mean--super-patriots? memorial-builders? pietists?) Mellifluous Congressman Upshaw of Georgia was not so indefinite in his remarks. He flayed the "blighting" cinema business: ". . . one liquor-drinking scene which defies the majesty of our constitutional law--one lecherous climax of sex appeal which tramples every sacred law of God and man, and, alas! the teacher's handiwork of many patient years is shattered in one fateful and fatal night." W. E. Harkness, vice president of the Broadcasting Company of America, implied a hopeful alternative to cineminiquity: "The child in the home can and does tune in on any program that is available and can absorb many things which he would not otherwise hear." Professor William C. Bagley of Teacher's College, Columbia University, went to the heart of the matter: "Mass education, not the education of leaders, is the bulwark of democracy!" To which statement a remark by Principal William A. Wetzel of Trenton, N. J., seemed almost a contradiction: "Until the school is operated on a basis of recognition of individual differences it will remain what it largely is today, an institution to educate all to a common level of mediocrity." Assistant Superintendent Flora Drake of Indianapolis phrased the same idea more poetically: "A school is a 'child garden,' to translate a German term. An expert gardener should know the peculiarities of each species of plant he tries to keep growing in his garden." U. S. Commissioner of Education John J. Tigert discussed the drawbacks of democracy: "It is quite clear that democracy which has breathed so much vitality into the schools of the present generation, may be carried to the point where it will become an evil which can be equaled only by the good it has accomplished. ... It is a serious question in the minds of thoughtful men. . . ." And so it went, speech after speech--Commissioner Augustus O. Thomas of Maine urging that school children be made "internationally minded"; Dr. William Healy, director of the Judge Baker Foundation of Boston, urging mental health measures--until the legislative assembly of 800 adopted resolutions for the year. Chief of these was an endorsement of the Curtis-Reed bill, still pending in Congress, providing, not for Federal subsidy of education, but for putting Education on a footing equal to Agriculture, Commerce, War et al, in the nation's councils. The bill's backers would seek appropriations of $1,500,000 per annum to support the Secretary of Education, to conduct the pedagogical research and advisory work now performed by the Bureau of Education in the Department of the Interior. The assembly unanimously adopted a report by investigators into the lot of the superannuated school teacher. What she dreads most is a lonely old age. To provide "companionship to prevent loneliness and grief" the Association will conduct a campaign to raise money for teacher homes.

For the first time in N. E. A. history, the delegates took official cognizance of sport as a factor of modern education. They affirmed their faith in competitive athletics, their conviction that it must not overshadow scholastics.

Election. A hot contest,waged by badges, buttons and posters, for the Association presidency between supporters of Uel W. Lamkin, President of Northwestern Missouri State Teachers' College, and of Dr. Francis G. Blair, State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Illinois, was won by the latter.

*About 80% are classroom teachers.