Teachers Meet

Two associations of U. S. public school teachers held their annual conventions last week. In the ranks of both were many teachers whose salaries had been cut. The 14,000 Chicago school teachers, notably, had been unpaid save for two weeks' salary in the past six months. Never highly paid, many a teacher had nonetheless helped feed destitute children during the year. Closely in touch with the ranks of the needy, the teachers feared further retrenchment. How would they avert it?

The American Federation of Teachers, at its 16th annual convention in Chicago last week, is no consultative professional body like the National Education Association. It is simply a federation of teachers' guilds. For its president it re-elected Dr. Henry Linville, president of the New York Teachers' Union. Should it wish to it could, unlike N. E. A., strike for anything it demanded. It could even become actively affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, as last week in Chicago it was urged to do. The A. F. of T. did not join but listened in approval while A. F. of L.'s president William Green said: "Labor is as much interested in maintaining the standard of education as it is in maintaining the standard of wages." A. F. of T. adopted resolutions as follows:

"American education faces a crisis. Thirteen thousand localities have been forced to curtail constructive educational activities, shortening the school year or reducing salaries and lowering teaching standards." Therefore, said A. F. of T., let Congress provide aid to States and municipalities through Reconstruction Finance Corp., for educational projects, payment of salaries, feeding of undernourished children.

National Education Association. One of the world's largest professional groups, N. E. A. concluded its 70th annual convention last week in Atlantic City. N. E. A. gives every convention a theme; this one's was, "Looking Ahead in Education." But the speakers did not look ahead only. Looking about their profession they spoke as follows:

Florence Hale, retiring president of N. E. A.: "Teachers should bear their due part in the general public economy program, but they should do so through contribution rather than through salary reduction on the books, lest the years of struggle that have gone into securing teachers a living wage in this country be set at naught."

Willis Anderson Sutton, Atlanta superintendent of schools: "It is safe to say that the teachers of the country have fed 2,000,000 school children, an average of two apiece, in the school year just closed."

James William Crabtree, secretary of N. E. A. said that schools have not shown anything like "the breakdown that is shown in finance and industry. . . . Losses have been offset with . . . a gain in the morale and faith of the teaching profession."

"Guilty Barbarians." Said Columbia University's brusque, boisterous Professor Walter Boughton Pitkin: "Almost everything that we have done in the United States in education, and especially in higher education, has been wrong. Recently I looked up the educational record of several hundred of those financiers who have ruined others in the past few years. Most of them were either college graduates or the recipients of honorary degrees from our American colleges. I cannot be proud of an educational system that turns out guilty barbarians."

"Crime Incubators." Said Warden Lewis E. Lawes of Sing Sing: "There is no moral force in the classroom. . . . The average prisoner boasts of a complete public school record and in many cases has reached high school and even higher institutions of learning. The failure of our schools and general educational methods is filling our juvenile homes, our reformatories and prisons. There is hardly a juvenile institution that is not a crime incubator."

Squabble. Among the presidents of N. E. A. have been great U. S. educators, including Charles William Eliot, David Starr Jordan, Nicholas Murray Butler. Present practice is to alternate male and female presidents. In line for the presidency last week was Joseph Rosier, president of Fairmont State Normal School, Fairmont, W. Va. A devout Methodist, he would have been elected with little ado had not the New York delegation proposed the name of Dr. John Dewey, liberal philosopher, humanist, Third Party sponsor. N. E. A. quivered and quaked. It was pointed out that N. E. A. has always been nonpartisan. Also, Dr. Dewey is connected with liberal Teachers College, is a "higher educator" whereas N. E. A. is chiefly concerned with secondary education. Dr. Rosier, said his sponsors, is a "practical educator" who has worked his way up from classroom teaching. N. E. A. compromised by making Dr. Dewey an honorary president for life, along with 87-year-old Editor Albert Edward Winship of the Journal of Education.* Elected president, Dr. Rosier urged that teaching emphasize "spiritual and cultural ideals," flayed contemporary "counting house methods of measuring educational results."

Platform. As in the past, N. E. A. resolved in favor of the 18th Amendment, urged a Federal Department of Education. Like the A. F. of T. it declared that the Government through Reconstruction Finance Corp., should loan money to States for educational projects, to safeguard against retrenchment. Proudly N. E. A., which vigorously campaigns always for new teacher-members, noted that its treasury contains a surplus.

For Old Oxonians

No pennant-waving co-ed is old Mother Oxford. In all things she behaves with dignity and decorum. Nevertheless Oxford, like any Alma Mater, needs the money of her sons. Last week if she was not actually waving her pennant, she was trying a tentative flourish. From Oxford's Chancellor, Viscount Grey of Fallodon, came a proposal to establish that most useful money-raising device, an Alumni Association. It is to be dignified with the name "Oxford Society." Promoted lately at a gathering of "representative" Oxford men, it gained notably the support of Old Oxonian Edward of Wales. Lord Grey addressed his appeal to all Oxford men and Oxford women, "scattered all over the habitable world, and who carry through life an affection for Oxford which to them must be a precious possession."

"The object of the society," wrote he, "is to strengthen the ties between Oxford and its old members. . . . There are many ways in which they can help her--with advice, with encouragement, with backing in the outside world, as well as with financial support. The university needs money, but she needs perhaps more the invigorating influence which comes from a keen and active body of old members."

For $15 (or $2.50 a year for six years) an Old Oxonian may become a life member of the Oxford Society, which like any Alumni Association will keep a register of addresses, issue news of university doings. Old Oxonians wondered if, having thus far adopted U. S. methods, the Oxford Society would go further and hold pep meetings, money drives, cornerstone layings.

On Whiskey Road

In 1919 Mrs. Josef Hofmann, wife of the famed pianist, was looking for a school for her daughter Josefa. She found none that suited. At length she looked at piny, sandy, swank Aiken, S. C. and found it good. There she established a school, named it Fermata. In 1926 Fermata School was taken over by F. A. M. Tabor, owner of Aiken Preparatory School for boys. Principal Tabor moved the school to its present site at Whiskey Road & Gin Lane. He expanded the plant with tennis courts, gymnasium, outdoor swimming pool. A Cambridge man, brother-in-law of Sir John Broderick, onetime commercial counsellor at the British Embassy in Washington, Principal Tabor invested Fermata with a strongly British atmosphere.

Because Aiken is much favored by Eastern socialites, the school attracted many a notable daughter, fell into the familiar pattern of select schools, emulating notably Virginia's Foxcroft. There are hockey and lacrosse; horses may be brought to Fermata or hired there; able girls go drag hunting. But Fermata is not scholastically distinguished. Possibly it did not care to be; between 1923 and 1927 only three girls took College Board examinations.

Last week Fermata obtained a new headmistress to succeed Mary M. Elder, Oxford graduate. Principal Tabor announced that next year's headmistress would be Emma Barber Turnbach, former singing director and headmistress for the last ten years at quiet Dongan Hall on Staten Island, N. Y. Headmistress Turnbach, aged about 45, is short, scholarly, charming. A onetime graduate student at Chicago and Columbia, she is a middling disciplinarian, interested chiefly in music.

Miss Turnbach will find Fermata School novel in at least one respect. Late at night twice a week, every able-bodied Fermata girl leaps into special "fire clothes," goes shinnying down a pole for fire drill. (The small boys in Aiken Preparatory School do it too, though most of them fall off sleepily.) Rich Fermata girls do not swagger; all wear green tunics by day. Nor may their parents pamper them; only one meal a weekend is allowed outside of grounds; and no candy except just after lunch in the "candy shop" (an old closet). The school is divided into three houses, with colors grey, red and green. Fermata takes for its own Harrow's famed song, "Follow On."

Some Fermata alumnae: Katrina McCormick, daughter of Mrs. Albert Gallatin Simms (Ruth Hanna McCormick); Gladys Szechenyi, daughter of the Hungarian Minister to the U. S.; Elizabeth Elkins (Philadelphia socialite); Nancy Heckscher, niece of Philanthropist August Heckscher; Janet White, daughter of Mrs. Richard S. Aldrich (wife of the socialite Representative from Rhode Island).

* Not to be confused with the N. E. A. Journal, which members receive free.

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