In Atlanta (cont.)

Teacher-members of the National Education Association, 6,000 strong, continued and concluded last week in Atlanta's municipal auditorium what they proudly called "the most important educational conference in our history."

Ethics. Formally but with great enthusiasm was adopted a teacher's code of ethics which has been five years in the making. Salient tenets:

The schoolroom is not the proper theatre for religious, political or personal propaganda.

The teacher should not tutor pupils in his class for pay.

The teacher should insist upon a salary scale suitable to his place in society.

Pyrtle. Uel Walter Lamkin's term as president of the N. E. A. expired. Elected to succeed him was Miss E. Ruth Pyrtle of Lincoln, Neb., who sailed immediately following the conference to attend conventions of the World's Federation of Education Associations and the American Association of University Women in Switzerland.

Daughter of pioneer Nebraskans, President Pyrtle is principal of the Bancroft School, Lincoln, Neb. A few years ago she took out a homestead on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in North Dakota, uses the money realized from the sale of corn crops to buy railroad tickets to educational conventions.

Illiterates. A resolution asked that when the U. S. census is taken next year, it count the noses of children under ten who can speak no English.

Federal Department. The annual N. E. A. resolution asking for a Federal Department of Education was passed.

Dewey. "Greatest U. S. philosopher," exponent of what he calls "empirical naturalism or naturalistic empiricism," Columbia University's Professor John Dewey was voted a life membership in the association, to be conferred on the occasion of his 70th birthday (Oct. 20).

Hyde. U. S. Secretary of Agriculture Arthur M. Hyde addressed the teachers, expounded the Hoover interpretation of such shopworn terms as Equalization Fee, Debenture Plan, Federal Farm Board, Cooperatives. He begged his hearers "to aid in . . . answering the . . . compelling cry: 'I am an American farmer!' "

Taft. Lorado Taft, prolific Chicago sculptor, spoke in general on "Beauty in American Life," in particular on "My Dream Museum."

Moton. Dr. Robert Russa Moton, principal of Tuskegee Institute for Negroes, made a speech about race relations. His points: Negroes are not inferior to whites, but more backward. They want civic equality, not intermarriage. "The Negro and the white can live together side by side in amity, if both are educated."

Mims. Dr. Edward Mims of Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tenn.) defended the South's reluctance to embrace "modernism." Said he: "Many people have passed from sentimentalism to sophistication, from rose pink literature to dirty drab, from Pollyanna optimism to the most depressing pessimism, from uplift to iconoclasm, from mediocrity to abnormal eccentricity, from service to rampant individualism and selfishness, from suppressed emotions and inhibitions to unbridled passion and undisciplined thinking, from success as an idol to failure as the chief glory of man and art.

"The South may well serve the nation by avoiding the extremes."