countries made this type of training a matter of national promotion and support. The program of Federal participation in and partial direction of vocational education begun in the United States in 1918 now affects some 6,000 schools and more than half a million young people and involves an annual expenditure of approximately $20,000,000.

Canadian Program for Technical Education

A similar program by which Dominion aid for technical education was extended to the provinces of Canada in 1919 contemplates a total annual aid of $10,000,000 by 1929, conditioned on an equal expenditure by the provinces. In the year of its inception more than 6,000 pupils enrolled in vocational courses. Beginning with 1900 the States of Australia one after another either strengthened or established the work in technical education. Enrollments increased to some 75,000 pupils and expenditures to £600,000. The foundations for a complete organization of vocational education were laid in France in 1918 and 1922. Appropriations for it in 1925 were doubled over those for the previous year. Everywhere science, scientific investigation, and vocational and technical education took a stronger hold on the systems of schools.

Medical inspection of school children began in the nineteenth century, but it has had its practical development in the past 25 years, and has proceeded from the examination for and exclusion of cases of communicable diseases to a complete examination for all conditions affecting the health and physique of the child. The employment of the school nurse was begun, first for the treatment of skin diseases and as an agent between home and school in securing the treatment of diseases and defects, and later also as an examiner of children. Finally teachers were trained to function as highly capable examiners, the nurse and the physician serving as specialists to whom defective and unhealthy children are referred for expert examination and diagnosis. Eventually the school took into its confidence the person most interested, the parent, and invited him to be present at the examination.

Improved Conditions of Child Health Recognition of nutrition as the most fundamental condition in child health began, tests for sorting out the malnourished were attempted, and special school feeding and the improvement of the school lunch period were established. Open-air schools for tuberculous and other children had their rise, and the idea is now dawning that every school should be at least a pure-air school for all. Much progress was made on the health side of 75260°-26†2

school architecture, especially in lighting and most notably in ventilation. The playground that had shrunk rapidly in size during the past century began to grow larger. A strong reaction set in against formal gymnastics and in favor of games and athletics for all. Conservation of human energy by caring closely for the child and for his health became watchwords in national policies.

The sudden and phenomenal growth of secondary schools startled even educators who were watching the situation closely, and it is yet only vaguely realized by a large majority of people. Out of the endowed grammar schools, the technical institutes, the organized science schools, and the pupil-teachers' centers in England there grew up under the influence of the board of education and the university examinations a somewhat unified program of secondary education expressing itself through a steadily increasing number of schools and pupils until 1914. Then a sudden and unexpected demand for education filled the schools to overflowing and made the setting and maintenance of higher standards of scholarship possible. From an enrollment of 198,884 in 1914-15, the schools grew to 307,862 in 1919-20 and 359,444 in 1924-25. The number of secondary pupils per thousand of population rose in those years from 5.5 to 8.1 and on to 9.9.

Phenomenal Growth of Secondary Schools

The United States began the century with approximately 720,000 pupils in 8,000 public and private secondary schools. For years new schools were opened at a rate equal to at least one each calendar day. More than 16,500 of them now enroll three and one-quarter million students, and are training 23 per thousand of population in secondary subjects as against

9.5 in 1900.

France, Sweden, and Germany laid out new schemes for secondary training in the early years of the period and carried them on as forceful programs until the turmoil of the later years compelled some modifications in subjects, time allotments, and course divisions. In all three countries these schools were for some time and to a certain extent still are the center of public attention, the direction that their purposeful continuance shall take being recognized as a vital matter in the lives of those nations. In buildings adapted to the purposes for which they are erected in development of administrative and organization principles and in training and professional standing of its working personnel secondary education has made greater advances perhaps than any other branch of the activities connected with the formal training of human beings.

Making education much more of an exact science, removing many of the wrong concepts about the material and methods of the schools, and determining more closely the innate abilities and capacities of students are in effect all products of this quarter century. Out of new statistical methods the principle of interpreting intelligence in age norms, and that of the objective standardized test grew series of measures used first individually and later with groups. They are now recognized as necessary instruments in evaluating any school system. Because of them research in education and in several lines of industry has taken on new direction and wonderfully increased momentum with considerable assurance of improvement in both fields, for intelligent research is usually followed by definite progress.

A Horizon Aglow With Promise

At the beginning of the second quarter of the twentieth century Minerva-to use for education the fine, figurative word of Italy-looks out upon a horizon aglow with promise. There is vastly more knowledge than ever before to be organized by and transmitted through the schools to vastly more people ready to make it part of their daily lives and thought. But if the work is of appreciably greater magnitude, the means for doing it are obviously of greater variety and strength and of finer adaptation. If the field for education is much wider in area, the time needed to reach its outermost boundaries is many fold diminished. If the wealth essential to financing its activities is running into enormous amounts, the sources from which to draw that wealth are richer and more numerous. If it is required to give daily training of more different kinds to many more millions, the personnel for doing it is also stronger in numbers and preparation and more versatile in achieve

ment. If there are many and difficult problems to be worked to successful solutions, there are more and better instruments to bring to bear on the process.

A Questioning World Accepting Few Dogmas

Minerva's world is now a frankly questioning world, accepting few dogmas and beliefs, content to follow few precedents, weighing, testing, surveying, examining, and experimenting, somewhat skeptical about the old, eager to try the new. With the hope that it will not again in many decades, or even ever, be forced to face such crises as those just passed, goes the desire that with quieter times it will lose nothing but gain more of the virility and versatility it has shown in the past 25 years.

GRAD

Education

RADUATE STUDY will not cease, even though, as some of the members of the department of economics of Columbia University have found, the cost of a doctor's degree is out of proportion to the salary of a college professor. The writer in the Monthly Labor Review, quoted on another page, has reduced to figures certain facts that are familiar to all who have even a passing knowledge of the conditions in the higher institutions of the country. It is true, perhaps, that the cost of living is higher in New York City than elsewhere, but the struggles of earnest students are little less severe in other institutions. Of some colleges it is said that three-fourths of the students must earn part of their expenses as they go through, and half of them maintain themselves wholly by their own efforts.

The will to learn is manifested in constantly increasing numbers of young men. Let us rejoice that it is so; but perhaps the principal reason for it is that educational standards are steadily rising. Success in any walk of life demands more and yet more of preparation. One is not considered for a college position unless he is a doctor. If he wishes to teach in a normal school or even a high school, his prospects of appointment and for later advancement are much greater for the possession of the same symbol of learning.

Teaching is not different from other professions in its requirement for more substantial preparation. Six or seven years of study after high-school graduation are necessary to be a physician, and those who attend the best law schools must do equally as much before they are graduated. Every ambitious boy realizes that he must earn degrees, the more the better, in order to compete with his fellow men for the prizes of professional life. And many of them suffer selfdenial amounting to actual privation to attain the ends they desire.

Perhaps the purpose of the writer in the Monthly Labor Review was to argue for

higher salaries for college teaching. If so his thesis may be considered proved without further ado. All will agree in the wish for that consummation. But higher salaries for professors mean either higher tuition fees or greater endowments. Higher fees would materially increase the difficulties of students; and nobody doubts that a fair proportion of the present income of every institution for higher education goes to the men upon whom its very life depends-its teaching staff. General increases in college salaries involve many practical considerations. They can not well be "passed on to the consumer, like the wages of bricklayers and engine drivers.

Whether it is possible or not to increase the rewards of college teaching, it should be possible to reduce the difficulties of preparation by reducing the time over which it extends.

Only about a fourth of the cost of college attendance is for fees and books; approximately three-fourths is for personal expenses which must continue wherever the student may be. The "four-quarter plan," which was introduced by the University of Chicago and has been adopted in many other institutions, is worthy of consideration in all the rest. It has been exceedingly helpful to many students in saving a calendar year in the college course and a half year in the graduate school without reducing the actual time of study.

The earnest efforts of Dr. Charles W. Eliot, of Dr. J. H. Baker, of Dr. W. R. Harper, and of many others to reduce the total time required for formal education have often been recalled in these columns; we can not refrain from adverting to them in this connection. Active movements are afoot for the simplification of the elementary course, the reorganization of the high school, and the readjustment of freshman and sophmore classes of the college. These should surely bring some realization of the plans of three of the greatest educational statesmen of the century. Those plans involve no additional cost; they mean saving of cost. And they are questions of organization only, and are within the control of those who administer the educational systems of the country.

Walter Hines Page and Rural Education

ANOTHER Walter Hines Page letter,

one which has not yet found a place in the magazines nor in any edition of his "Life and Letters," has recently come to light in the files of the Bureau of Education. There is inspiration in it of the kind that sets in motion the machinery of

practical progress. In it is evidence of high purpose in public service, too, for it shows the desire of a bureau chief to seek in the solution of public problems the counsel of great minds. To these and more this letter written by Mr. Page to the Commissioner of Education in 1911 testifies:

CATHEDRAL AVENUE,

Garden City, L. I., July 23, 1911.

MY DEAR CLAXTON: Make a plan to do some active work. I have no doubt you have a dozen. For instance: Select two or three regions where the best rural public schools are people that are working intelligently toward making a real country school of a new sort in the world. Make a plan to help them and to report them. Work toward the creation of a perfect country school. Then you'll have something to make a report about a report that will be read all round the world. Then the Congressmen from those districts will stand by you. Then you'll have a plan, too, to make a comprehensive program-to find a way whereby your bureau can be of direct help in planting or developing such schools everywhere. You can take this great movement, organize it, report it, direct it— manage it.

Then if you ask for $10,000 to do this particular job with showing precisely how you'll use the moneyyou'll get it; then you'll get $20,000; then $100,000-then any sum you want.

With no plan, nobody cares for the bureau. If it do something, then everybody'll care. I'd like to talk this over with you. Yours, &c.,

W. H. PAGE.

Mr. Page, as all the world now knows believed in the restoration of country life in America with education as its chief instrument. "Education, Education, Education" was his remedy for a variety of ills of the country in whose service he was later to achieve a high place. Other eminent Americans have realized the dependence of the Nation's future greatness on education. Few have thought so seriously of better schools in rural communities as a national asset. Few have seen as he saw it, the Nation's future so closely related to "a real country school of a new sort in the world."

Mr. Page apparently had two things in mind when he wrote that the Bureau of Education should plant and develop the ideal country school, and that it should seek out and give publicity to superior country schools wherever, if anywhere, they could be found. That his letter may have been the inspiration of a dream cherished in the Bureau of Education for some years namely, that of securing a special appropriation for the conduct of experimental and observation schoolsseems probable. The $100,000 appropriation Mr. Page suggested for this purpose did not materialize, yet reports of the Commissioner of Education show that each year for several years he importuned Congress for money for that purpose.

It does not appear what influence, if any, Mr. Page's letters and advice had on the making of these requests and on the increase of the small appropriation for rural education which had been previ

ously made.

"Life and Letters" (vol. 1), will remember his references to the Bureau of Education in his intercourse with Woodrow Wilson before the latter's inauguration as President. At any rate, the appropriation was later increased in amount. The formation of a division of rural education with full-time specialists was one of the fruits of this appropriation.

In the years which have intervened since Mr. Page's suggestion of 1911, the spirit, if not the letter, of his counsel has been more than attained. Lacking a special appropriation for the purpose, the Bureau of Education has not had the facilities to "work toward the creation of the perfect country school" directly, nor on its own initiative and under its immediate management. It has done the next best, or perhaps even a better, thing considering our democratic policy of local initiative in education. It has been privileged on many occasions, in a variety of ways, and in practically every State in the Union, to advise with school officers as to ways and means looking toward the development of a more perfect country school. It has exceeded Mr. Page's suggestion in that its advisory service has extended beyond the development of individual schools to the formulation of plans for rural-school systems or important factors governing such systems, to the end that efficient country schools be provided over a larger extent of territory than the influence of any one school could reach.

To Coordinate Pennsylvania State Normal Schools

The fourth annual conference of the faculties of the State normal schools of Pennsylvania was held at Lock Haven, November 23 to 25. Five hundred and five faculty members, more than 90 per cent of the teaching staffs of the 14 State normal schools, attended the meeting. Eighteen members of the State department of public instruction were present. Dr. Ambrose L. Suhrie, normal school specialist, New York University, counseled the various conference groups and spoke at one of the general sessions.

A large part of the conference was given to section meetings, which were held by those interested in the several departments of study, such as geography, English, and social studies, as well as by the rural training school faculties, bursars, librarians, registrars, and the like. The conference was strictly professional and was devoted to the general theme "A well prepared and growing teacher in every classroom of the public schools of the Commonwealth."

IS

S THE COST of preparation for the teaching profession too great in proportion to the salary return? A recent study by Elma B. Carr of the expenditures of 41 graduate students at Columbia University and of the salaries of a large number of men and women in the teaching personnel of colleges and universities raises a serious doubt, amounting almost to an affirmative answer. A paper comprising the results of the study was published in the November number of the Monthly Labor Review, a publication of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Single men students at Columbia in 1923-24 spent for the school year of nine months an average of $1,186 each; single women students, $1,158; and married couples, from $1,630 to $2,973. The figures do not include expenditures for guests, gifts, church and charity contributions, railroad fare, insurance, and savings. The expenses were distributed approximately in the ratio of 25 per cent for tuition; 25 per cent, food; 18 per cent, rent; 14 per cent, clothing; 4 per cent, books and stationery; 4 per cent, health; and 10 per cent for carfare, recreation, and miscellaneous items.

The reports from the students showed that well-balanced meals in sufficient quantity could not be had for less than $250 for the nine months and that about $330 would be preferable to insure enough wholesome food. One woman whose food

shall not accept any remunerative employment. The scholarships do little more than cover expenses for tuition. The amount received from the fellowships is somewhat more, but in most cases will in no wise cover the total cost of living and school expenses. Unless a student has private funds he must forego the above benefits because outside work is necessary in order to meet living expenses."

Basing the judgment on the figures of this investigation, the cost of attaining the bachelor degree will be $4,800, the master's degree $6,000, and the doctorate $7,300 or $8,500, depending on whether one takes two or three years of graduate work for the latter.

From this investment of four, five, six, or seven years of time and effort and $4,800 to $8,500 in money the person who enters the teaching profession can hope to receive at most about $3,400 salary in a small university or college, $3,700 in a medium-sized one, and $6,000 in a large institution. Moreover, those salaries will be reached, if at all, only after 15 to 20 years of successful experience. The study concludes:

"If the entire college education, including the doctor's degree, were obtained before beginning to teach, it would take many years to save the whole outlay of $8,000, together with the return on this investment, extending, as it does, over several years. This, moreover, includes

with two other girls. They cooked most of their own breakfasts and dinners.

The single men students had average yearly incomes of $989; the single women students, $496; the married couples, from $1,538 to $2,315. In part the incomes were from scholarships and fellowships but the author states:

"At Columbia, as at most other universities, some aid is given to students in the way of scholarships and fellowships. However, not only is the number of these scholarships and fellowships limited, but the amount in most cases is very meager. In most instances, moreover, there is some reservation or stipulation which lessens the value of these awards to the student in general. For instance, at Columbia University, scholarships are not given to persons over 30 years of age, and the acceptance of scholarships and fellowships is further limited by the stipulation that the student accepting such award

not allow for the time and cost of preparing and publishing the thesis for the doctor's degree. *

*

"With the cost of preparation so high, too large a percentage of our teachers are barred from obtaining these degrees because of the disparity existing between the cost of preparation and the salary return. The teachers who can not afford to obtain at least the bachelor's degree are in most cases barred from teaching in universities and colleges, which means, in most instances, that they do not receive even as high a salary as shown by the figures quoted in this article, and hence further advancement out of saving is almost impossible.

"The figures cited show only the money cost and return. In addition there are many sacrifices that must be made by the teacher and his family in order that the husband and father may advance in his profession."

Achievements of Typical Consolidated Schools For Rural Social Service

Community Organization Usually Lacking in Agricultural Districts. Superintendents of Consolidated Schools, Trained for Leadership in Community Effort, Supply the Need, Utilizing the Equipment of the Schools

T

By TIMON COVERT

Assistant Specialist in Rural Education, Bureau of Education

HE VALUE of any school depends upon the extent of its educational and social service to the community. The typical consolidated school not only gives training in the regular branches of the curriculum, but fully 90 per cent of the centralized schools in the

which are located two fine school buildings, a garage, gymnasium, a community minister's home, a house of two three-room apartments for the mechanic and principal, a teacherage, and superintendent's cottage, this rural school organization is an object of community pride, and prop

Sargent Consolidated School offers an excellent example of community service United States are carrying on some form of extra curricular activity for school children and adults.

The Sargent Consolidated School in Colorado offers one of the best examples of community service. Its curriculum includes the standard subjects and in addition courses in vocational home making, agriculture, and farm shop are offered. There is ample space for athletic parks and for school projects in agriculture. Some of the best grain grown in that fertile valley is produced on the land of the school plant. The "farm shop" in connection with the school garage, where the school busses are kept in repair, supplies a practical laboratory to the class in farm mechanics. Under the leadership of an expert, the boys learn to do by doing. The home-making rooms, besides serving as regular classroom laboratories for the girls of the high school, are used by the ladies of this community in preparing the community dinners which are frequently served.

Here, 8 miles from any town, where no community interest existed prior to the organization of this school less than 10 years ago, there is one of the finest examples of community cooperation to be found in the country. With an organization of sufficient size to function properly, equipped with 14 acres of campus upon

erly so, for it has shown how the school and community may be integrated in carrying on the much needed work of rural social service.

And at the little country town of Americus in east central Kansas a consolidated school was organized in 1922,

which marked the beginning of a new era for the people living in that community. A rural member of the board of education was asked if he thought the patrons were

satisfied with the change which had been made. He said, "It seems that every

one has a real interest in our school this winter. Our children are cared for so well in the bus, and the school is doing so well so many worth-while things, it makes us willing to help in every way we can. Now when we have a school program every one tries to make it a success."

Each Student Conducted a Home Project

A course in vocational agriculture under the direction of an expert trained at the agricultural college, was added to the curriculum. Each member of this class carried on an individual home project lasting throughout the year. Besides this the boys in the class went out into neglected orchards of the community and pruned fruit trees; they held a school fair in which the entire community took part; they made a hotbed, raising sweetpotato, cabbage, and tomato plants, and sold them as a class project. When a stockman advertised a sale of purebred hogs at the county seat and offered a gift to the person guessing nearest to the average selling price of the stock to be sold, this class attended the sale and carried home the prize pig. Class instruction and practical experience gained through their serving the community during the school year enabled them to do this.

The auditorium of a well-administered consolidated school is the most used room of the building. In'it music and dramatics classes meet regularly during the week, and it is home room for the community

motion pictures, lecture courses, and other programs of general interest to pupils and adults. Many centralized schools have regular courses for adults in home and child hygiene. The school or county

nurse meets with the mothers of the neighborhood in the school auditorium, and she illustrates her talks with lantern slides. In the Burns Consolidated School, which was one of the first to be organized in Kansas, the auditorium is reserved for the women's use one afternoon each week. From their home duties these country women come to the school for an afternoon of instruction and pleasure. They listen to lectures, ask questions on home making, and, clearing away the movable chairs, play basket ball and other games. Their school is functioning as a social agency in their lives.

Community Cooperation Follows Consolidation

Consolidation and community cooperation go hand in hand. Only where all are interested in the school and are active in the promotion of its endeavors, can it be expected to accomplish things worth while. Strong agricultural courses, vocational home-making classes, music clubs, and dramatics instruction, such as are found in the Mount Vernon Union High School, Skagit County, Wash., and similar high schools in many States, are most important factors in a rural school. They convince the patrons that their school merits whole-hearted support. This school has arranged its courses to fit the needs of pupils who expect to live in the country and those who expect to live in towns or cities. A substantial percentage of boys in this school from farm homes expect to farm. The school offers them opportunity to learn farm management in a practical way by the homeproject method.

Neglected Social Life is Transformed There are many rural consolidated schools in every State in which this genuine educational social service is to be found. No other agency can reach the people so well as the public school. Rural people in the small one-teacher districts often lack the leadership necessary to community organization for social activity. Desirable and appropriate room for a public meeting place is not often available. The typical superintendent of a modern consolidated school is trained for his profession. His training includes community organization and leadership. Assisted by an able teaching force, he welds the community into a working unit. The one-time neglected rural social life is steadily being transformed into a new and active community spirit which reflects the work of the typical American consolidated school.

High Schools

Michigan High School Inspectors Institute New Policy. Superintendents of Schools in Small Towns, County Commissioners, and Parochial-School Heads in Conference. All Discussions are Specific and Concrete

T

By J. B. EDMONSON

Professor of Secondary Education, University of Michigan

O INCREASE the services to the
small public and private high
schools of the State, Inspector

J. B. Edmonson, of the University of
Michigan, and Inspector C. L. Good-
rich, of the State department of public
instruction, called a series of conferences
at the opening of this school year in 11
strategic centers of the State. Attend-
ance at these conferences was restricted
to superintendents of schools in towns
of under 2,500 population, the county
commissioners of schools, and the heads
of parochial schools or their representa-
tives. This restriction was placed in
order to make it possible to stress the
problems of the smaller schools of the
State.

The principal topics presented at the conferences were: Standards of Scholarship in Small High Schools; Improvement of Supervision in the Small School Systems; Curriculum of the Small School; Meaning of the Standards of Accrediting; Health and Play Activities in the Small School; and Interpretation of the Regulations of the State Athletic Association. Each of these topics was presented

Studies in Secondary Education

Made Available

A clearing house for research work in secondary education will be established in the Interior Department, Bureau of Education. More than 70 institutions of

learning in the United States, including teachers colleges and schools of education, as well as research bureaus and organizations, have agreed to file with the bureau a copy of each research study completed by them. The material collected will be made available by the bureau either through loan of these studies or by providing rooms where research workers may come and examine the material. This cooperation will make possible also the publication from time to time by the bureau of abstracts of secondary education research.

Operative treatment for children suffering from mastoid disease is provided by the school medical service of Birmingham, England.

by the use of an outline, a copy of which was furnished to each one in attendance. The speakers attempted to make their discussions as specific and concrete as possible. The superintendents were urged to use the outlines as a basis of a report to their teachers and to their boards of education.

Each conference lasted four hours and was conducted in such a way as to encourage interruptions with questions. Through the conferences about threefourths of the small accredited high schools of the State were reached. unsigned ballot of those in attendance indicated unanimous approval of the conferences and unanimous desire for a second conference.

An

This second conference will in all probability be held in January and plans will be made for a program that will interest superintendents and secretaries of boards of education.

The inspectors do not consider the conference plan as a substitute for the former type of inspection, but view it as a possible way of anticipating some of the common weaknesses and the perplexing problems of the smaller schools.

Southern Association Supports National Committee

The Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools unanimously passed resolutions supporting the national comat the meeting of the association at mittee on research in secondary education Charleston, S. C., December 3. A direct financial appropriation was made for the use of the committee. This appropriation is the final step necessary to assure active cooperation of the organizations represented in research undertakings. The action by the southern association is expected to serve as a precedent for other organizations.

The financial needs of the committee are not great. The principal needs are to finance committee meetings and a certain amount of field travel by chairmen of special committees who have the responsibility of organizing and directing specific studies. The committee is not asking large financial appropriations from cooperating organizations.