A thrift wage brings relief from worry, but leaves the mind and soul hungering for those things which a teacher best knows she must have in order to do her duty.

A culture wage includes the other two, and equips the teacher for greater usefulness in the school and in the community.

At a meeting of teachers representing all parts of Massachusetts the above budget was filled in according to the consensus of opinion of all present. The result was an estimate of $1,382 for an existence. wage, $1,612 for a thrift wage, and $1,812 for a cultural wage. sequent reports from various communities verified these figures as being a conservative estimate for a minimum.

THE SALARY OF NEGRO TEACHERS.

The salaries paid the Negro teachers are absurdly low, about $450 per year of nine months in Brunswick and $30 per month for about six months, in the country. With the Negro schools, as with the white, the board should be in a position to require increasingly higher qualifications of the teachers and also to have a larger number from which to make selection. This can not be done until salaries are increased.

As standards of education, professional training, and experience required of colored teachers are raised more nearly to approximate the requirements set for white teachers, as they indeed should be, more nearly also should the salary schedule of the former approximate that of the latter. Among colored schools, as among white schools, conditions should prevail which will draw to the schoolroom teachers of the highest ability and of the best training. Colored men and women should find in the profession of teaching children of their own race an opportunity for a career of dignity and of the highest usefulness.

THE SCHOOLS NEED A MORE LIBERAL EQUIPMENT.

Not only has the effort of the Glynn County board to hold to an average expenditure of $25 per child made it necessary to limit the schools to a cheap type of education and to require the teachers to work for less than a living wage, but it has also made it necessary to ask the schools to conduct their work without the equipment necessary for securing efficient results.

Doubtless one reason why more oral-class discussion of lively character was not found either in the elementary schools or in the classes of high-school rank, though there were notable exceptions in both, is due to the pitiable lack of supplemental help, such as books, charts, maps, and illustrative material of various kinds which the modern school finds indispensable.

Without such enriching material the teacher is forced to depend entirely upon the textbooks which the pupils purchase. Now, a textbook because of its space limitations can be little more than an outline or a compendium of generalizations which its author has compiled. The mere memorization of these generalizations is of no educational value. The value comes in wisely guiding the child along the path the author took in reaching his generalizations and in showing the child some of the rich and interesting detail which the author had before him when he was occupied in writing his text. By having such concrete detail at hand and through the rough-and-tumble of an interested group discussion wherein the children themselves constantly raise the questions which their interest prompts, the wise teacher can make the abstract principles and formal statements of the text mean something. Such work is genuine teaching and its value is high, for thereby the child can be taught to attack a problem; how and where to secure data necessary to the forming of valid conclusions; how to compare and contrast statements; how to distinguish between the author's major point, his minor points, and the material which he employs to illustrate each; in short, thereby he can be taught how to study, and not only how to study while he is yet in school, but how to study for himself after he leaves school and begins his life work.

A library of books, then, which correlates with the subjects studied in the classroom should be accessible to every child in Brunswick. Much of the work of each child should be that of delving into the rich material which can be assembled to seek out facts pertaining to the subject in hand, bringing these into the classroom, and pooling them with similar contributions by other members. In doing this the pupil will become familiar with library methods, with card catalogues, with methods of finding material in magazine files, various encyclopædias and dictionaries, and how to use tables of contents and indexes. By so doing, not only is the child himself to a degree drawing his own generalizations from out the body of concrete detail which lies at hand (infinitely more valuable than memorizing an author's conclusions), but he is learning how, while he is yet in school, to employ the methods he must use when he gets out of school if he is ever to accomplish anything as a student.

In respect to such fund of accessible material the pupils in the schools of Brunswick are badly handicapped; far more so, in fact, than are children who attend rural schools in many of the isolated places of this country. The few books which are in the high school library are kept locked up, because no way has yet been worked out for preventing loss when the children are given access to them; only beginnings of libraries have been started in the elementary schools by parent-teachers' associations, while the board of education is too

hard pressed for funds in other directions to do much in the building up of such vital equipment. In instances in the high school and in certain classrooms in the grades, individual teachers, out of their own salaries, have purchased material of this character. A difference in the effectiveness of the work of such, as compared with those lacking such vitalizing and enriching material, is easily discernible.

A unique and highly commendable interest in the school affairs has been taken in recent years by the present president of the Glynn County board of education. He has personally gone about from school to school giving talks on birds, trees, insect life, and on interesting natural features of the region, illustrated by pictures and slides. It would be difficult to estimate the good that has resulted through these talks given by one who himself is a lover of nature and a student of the ways of wild things.

HIGH SCHOOL NEEDS WELL-EQUIPPED LIBRARY ROOM.

The teaching activities of a high school, in particular, should be made to center about the library, for in no other way can the pedagogical error be avoided of attempting to teach subjects instead of teaching how to study subjects. It is clear that in the limited time of a high school course, and with immature pupils who comprise the student personnel, no relatively complete mastery of any subject can be obtained. But a trail through the woods of each subject in the courses offered can be blazed, and the pupils can be taught how to use the tools which are indispensable to such work. Learning how to use a library-that is, learning how to use the tools of study— should be begun well down in the grades and continued throughout the entire school course. If pupils go through the elementary and high schools as they are now doing, without gaining any first-hand acquaintanceship with library methods, nor any appreciation of the need or value of books in pursuing their studies, it is difficult to see how, when they graduate and settle down in the community as citizens, they will be any more interested in securing better library facilities provided for at public expense than is the present citizenship of Brunswick. The schools will not have done their rightful duty in the matter unless through the practical work of the classroom a demand for books is created so insistent as to lead to action. A room convenient to the study hall of the high school should be set apart as a library room; a manual training department could equip it with tables, book racks, and filing cases for pictures and clippings. A teacher trained in library methods should be placed in charge; and a sufficient amount should be provided in the yearly budget to enable a good working aggregation of books adapted to the work of the classes to be quickly assembled. The invigorating influence of such an arrangement would be felt at once.

A working basis for such an allowance is suggested by Chancellor,1 who has made a special study of the problems of school administration. His estimate of what a school department should do in this connection, together with his comment thereon, follows:

ESTIMATE OF A YEARLY ALLOWANCE FOR BOOKS AND SUPPLIES.

As with a household of highly educated people, so with a school, the tendency is steadily to increase the demand for funds to meet increasing needs. To desire things and services is to live in civilization. The following standard of allowances for books, general supplies, manual training, etc., is a reasonable minimum where a community means to have good schools. With experience, much larger sums can be well spent, and education will be correspondingly improved.

9. THE ABILITY OF GLYNN COUNTY TO PROVIDE A LARGER MAINTENANCE INCOME FOR ITS SCHOOLS.

SOURCES OF INCOME.

The funds which support the schools of Brunswick and the funds used to maintain the schools of that part of Glynn County lying outside the limits of Brunswick, though administered by a single board of education (the county board), are kept separate and distinct, for the law provides that taxes for school purposes levied on property in Brunswick shall be exper ded within Brunswick ard the funds derived

1 Chancellor, W. E. Our schools, their administration and supervision. (1909.) P. 383.

from the country outside shall be used exclusively for the schools outside of Brunswick. Under the Georgia school code the voters of a given taxation unit may by a two-thirds vote authorize the board of education to levy a tax for school purposes at any rate they deem wise not to exceed 5 mills on each dollar of assessed valuation. This authority was granted the Glynn County board; in addition, the board was empowered to levy an additional 3 mills on the property of Brunswick through the settlement of a long-standing controversy over the town commons, originally a tract of 1,000 acres of English crown lands set apart for the support of education. In the settlement it was agreed that, upon the relinquishment by the board of education of all claim to title (much of the land is now at the heart of Brunswick), the city would grant the board the authority to levy a tax for the support of the schools of the city not to exceed 3 mills. In consequence, then, of this settlement and of the authority vested in the board by formal action of the people the board has the right to levy a tax on Brunswick property up to 8 mills and on the county outside of Brunswick up to 5 mills. In addition, under the act of 1885, a tax of three-eighths of a mill is levied on all property in the county but is prorated between the schools of the city and those of the county on the basis of the number of school census children living in each respectively. Then, in addition to these local taxes, the county receives its proportion of the State school fund, a proportion based on the school census, which is prorated between the schools of Brunswick and those outside of Brunswick, in turn, on the basis of the school census. This amounted to about $4 per census child in 1919.

The following table gives a summary of the school income for the year 1919:

Receipts for school maintenance, 1919.

Sources.

From State fund (prorated on basis of school census)..

From 3-mill tax (on county outside city).......

From 34-mill tax (on city only)..

From miscellaneous sources...

From -mill tax on entire county (prorated on basis of school census).

Total..