Union Teachers

"School teachers are as intelligent as bricklayers and housewreckers." Therefore, argued John P. Coughlin, Manhattan labor unionite, to the already unionized American Federation of Teachers meeting in New York last week, therefore, they should organize. Another of his points: "Labor needs a group of educators ... for through them we may attain the end of teaching in our public schools, the truths about the great industrial world. . . . Today any fool with a silly idea can almost always sell it to some board of education and clutter up the schools with a lot of unessentials." Only about two score unionized teachers heard Mr. Coughlin. The teachers' union is not large yet. But their program is vigorous. They are against: construction of schools with more than 200 pupils capacity and classes of more than 30; military training in school and college. They are for: collective bargaining in fixing teachers' salaries; equality between men and women teachers; research into the nomination, election and appointment of boards of education.