P

By JAMES F. ABEL

EOPLE of the semiarid States of

the western highland are generous in their thought about providing public schools. Much of the area is desert, so dry and so unproductive that no one could possibly make a living on it. But outside of the few cities, along the streams where there is water for irrigation, in the mountains where enough of some valuable mineral has been found to support a mining camp, and on the railroads where there are trading centers or water-supply stations, there are small villages or communities. Often the community has not more than two or three families; sometimes only one, if one family may be considered a community.

Settlement of Desert Must be Encouraged

To utilize all the resources of those States men must go out into isolated places and live and work and take their families with them. The kind of men and women most needed are not satisfied to rear their children without education. nor can the State permit it. On the contrary, it must encourage settlement by being liberal in maintaining schools, So Nevada allows a school to be established where there are five census

The teacher at Vail, Pima County, and her home isolated schools, Wyoming about 1,200, and Arizona 270 for 4,000 pupils.

The people of those States in general understand thoroughly the advantages of the larger graded schools and are using

children and maintained if there are three in attendance. New districts may be formed in Arizona for 10 children. Schools for eight pupils or fewer may be held in Wyoming. In Utah, where community life is developed more highly than in any other part of the United

transportation, school dormitories, the county unit, and anything else possible to have such schools, but at best there must be many one-room schools, often "one-family" schools. There is no way of avoiding it.

The teacher who gives a year or more

Excellent accounts of the conditions of rural teaching in some of the counties of Arizona have recently been prepared by two graduate students of the University of Arizona, Meredith L. Laughlin, in a paper entitled "Status of the Rural Teacher of Pima County," and Nellie Leona Meyer, whose production is called "Status of the Teacherage of the Rural Schools in Pima County, Santa Cruz County, and Maricopa County." Neither study has yet been published.

The particular county Laughlin studied is typically southwestern, large, threefourths desert, one-fourth productive, and that one-fourth contiguous to a small-sized city. There are a few mining camps, some very large ranches, and the usual Government stations for the Reclamation Service or for the education of the Indians.

Over half the teachers are in one-room schools. In general, these western oneroom schools do not draw from the great body of normal and college trained teachers. They attract a varied group: Young women and men just out of high school who must earn something before they go on to college or the normal school-if they ever do go; older women whose families have been broken up for some reason and who must support themselves and one or two children; elderly

men and women who can not easily find places in the larger school systems; adventurous girls from Eastern States who fancy the moving-picture West to be the real West and are lured by ideas of freedom and change; homesteaders who must tide over the first unproductive years of the ranch with some outside

These schools hold teachers only a short time. The pupils are few, often 10 or less, and averaging about 22; the grades number generally four or more; the day is crowded with short period recitations; the classes are of one, two, three, and four pupils, not enough to rouse interest and enthusiasm; and the school

income; seekers after health. These make up a teacher group, earnest, for the most part capable and energetic, but not so homogeneous as the gradeschool group. In age they range from 20 to 67 years. Their training varies, in so far as training may vary, as greatly as do their ages and their reasons for being in the profession. Nor is there much chance for training in service. The county superintendent, who must travel all day to visit one school or an entire week to visit two or three schools, and occasionally camp out because there is no place to stay overnight, spends more time in traveling than in supervision; and the teacher is fortunate who receives in a year more than a few hours of help from the administrative office. The western county does not as a rule hold an annual county institute. The group would be too small and the expense too great. There is the university summer school for teachers and the State institute is usually held in the fall. Transportation to and from one or both is either paid by the school or reduced fares are allowed by the railroads and stage lines.

The States hold the power of certification, and teachers from other States are granted certificates on diplomas granted in those other States on examination or records of experience and graduation. The experience is usually very limited, not more than one or two years; but here again the range is great, amounting in some cases to from 35 to 40 years and including nearly every kind of educational work.

library, if there is one, consists mostly of encyclopedias, books of knowledge,

and other sets dear to the heart of the book agent. They are none too acceptable to the teacher and wholly lacking in the power to draw and hold the interest of children.

The energetic young normal graduate who is seeing America by teaching from

after a year or two of teaching, either puts his claim on a paying basis or gives it up and goes away. Then the little school casts about for another teacher.

One-fourth or more of the school buildings are privately owned and rented or the use is given free to the district. Such buildings are almost sure to be unfitted for school purposes, badly lighted, with no arrangements for ventilation, built of adobe or, at best, rough lumber, and unsanitary and unsightly in the last degree. There is little equipment and no playground apparatus. The districtowned buildings are better. A county superintendent will not, can not afford to, let the public money be wasted, and the larger part of the publicly owned buildings are reasonably well adapted to school use.

Salaries average about $1,250 a year in Arizona. They are considerably less than in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Very few of the Arizona teachers reporting to Laughlin had any income other than the salary, little more than half were carrying insurance, more than one-fifth were supporting dependents, and about half were able to save something each year.

homes were not open to the teachers. Miss Meyer tells of one teacher who boarded but cooked one meal for herself and her child "because they could not live on beans, bread, and jerky."

Teacherages would do much to solve the living problem, and in southern Arizona they are used to a considerable

still another instance the district rented the teacher a tent at the rate of $5 a month. One teacher pays $8 a month for a one-room adobe house and $2 for a chore boy to carry water; she lives 18 miles from the railroad and sends in twice a month for supplies; there is no telephone and no mail service.

extent. Twenty-two out of 27 districts in Pima County have no families that will board the teacher, so teachers' homes are a necessity. There are 23-9 owned by the county, 2 by the National Government, and 12 by private corporations or persons. Those owned by the county were built at an average cost of $500 each, were erected on no definite plan, and range from a one-room shack made of railroad ties to a modern five-room cottage. Those built by the mining companies to accommodate the teachers of the mining camps are comfortable, convenient, and sanitary. Those rented to teachers by private individuals are for the most part unsatisfactory in the last degree.

The county claims to have at San Xavier the first publicly owned teacherage built in the United States. An energetic pioneer teacher, Carlos H. Tully, succeeded in getting the boundaries of the district extended until it was 8 miles wide and 46 miles long. The resulting school census of 98 children drew so large an apportionment that after Mr. Tully's salary as teacher had been paid there was $1,800 left for a teacherage and furniture. Against the opposition of the county superintendent but with the approval of the territorial superintendent, and finally with a court decision in his favor, Mr. Tully built the teacherage in 1886.

One of the rural districts of the county uses a box car for a combined schoolroom and teacher's home. In a near-by county a teacher uses as a residence a deserted section house. In another county two old school buildings were remodeled. In

Thus the urge of necessity is met in a more or less aimless way by providing something or other as a "teacherage." No definite, forceful direction has yet been given the movement, nor have its principles been established.

Added to the difficulties of doing good work in the one-room school, the low salary, and the poor living conditions, there is a lack of social life. This is an

their week ends in the community in which they teach. Some of the schools have parent-teacher associations and the school buildings are used for meetings of various kinds. More than half the communities offer no form of social recreation. Naturally there is little inducement for the teacher to return for a second year.

Consolidation Is Improving South Carolina Schools

The State department of education of South Carolina, through its official journal for the year 1924-25, is promoting school consolidation. The State rural school supervisor reports, for 1922-23, 1,256 consolidated schools and only 782 oneteacher schools. Reports from 22 county superintendents state that nearly all of these counties are carrying on programs of consolidation, building better schoolhouses, extending the term length, and transporting pupils. Already in this school year Union County has consolidated 5 districts and eliminated 4 one-teacher and 2 two-teacher schools. The superintendent of Spartanburg County says that landlords in districts where there is a good school have no trouble renting their lands. This county is bettering its schools and having to enlarge many buildings because of the families that are attracted by the opportunities for their children. Among the fine consolidated schools of the State is the Fletcher Memorial School, erected as a tribute to the war service of Robert T. Fletcher by his father and his uncle.

BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL INFORMATION, New York. Training for the professions and allied occupations; facilities available to women in the United States. New York, N. Y., Bureau of vocational information, 1924. xii, 742 p. 8°.

The various occupational fields for women described in this volume are 23 in number, including agriculture, architecture, art, business, dentistry, dramatic work, education, engineering, home economies, landscape architecture, languages, law, library work, medicine, music, nursing, personnel work, pharmacy, public health, religious work, science, social work, and writing. Each section has a general survey giving the trend of the occupation and the status of training, and a directory of institutions where preparation for the particular occupation may be had. Under education, besides the subject in general, attention is given to the "major fields" of educational administration, educational research, and teaching, the latter both in general and with special reference to the kindergarten and to physical education. The entire field of vocational opportunities for women is covered in a comprehensive and thorough manner. DESCHAMPS, JEANNE. L'auto-éducation a l'école appliquée au programme du Dr. Decroly, avec une introduction du Dr. Decroly. Bruxelles, Maurice Lamertin, 1924. 141 p. diagrs. 12°.

The system of auto education devised by Doctor Decroly, of Brussels, proposes to follow nature by recognizing the individual aptitudes of the pupils and giving them freedom of choice and initiative. In this respect it resembles various other methods, such as that of Madame Montessori, the Dalton and Fairhope plans; and the procedure employed in the public schools of Winnetka, Ill., and of Los Angeles. In this book a collaborator of Doctor Decroly tells how she applied his method in her teaching.

HARAP, HENRY. The education of the

consumer; a study in curriculum material. New York, The Macmillan company, 1924. xxii, 360 p. tables. 8°.

Material is here presented for the study of the principles of education for effective consumption. The need is indicated for the utilization of quantitative evidence as a basis for curriculum reconstruction, for which a complete method is proposed requiring the cooperation of the sociologist, the psychologist, and the administrator in education. The task undertaken by the writer is the determination of educational objectives for effective economic life with special reference to the consumption of commodities. Quantitative evidence regarding the present habits of the American people is adduced and compared with efficient practice and approved standards, respecting foods, housing conditions, household materials and skills, fuel, and clothing. The conclusions from this comparison are presented as objectives of education with reference to consumption.

KANDEL, I. L. The reform of secondary education in France. New York city, Teachers college, Columbia university, 1924. viii, 159 p. 8°. (Studies of the International institute of Teachers college, Columbia university, no. 2.)

The changes in French secondary education which were decreed in 1923 under M. Léon Bérard as minister of public education and fine arts are described in these pages, with a statement of the historical development preceding the measure. The present government of France has decided not to put these changes into effect. The greater part of Doctor Kandel's volume consists of an appendix containing documentary material relating to the proposed reform.

KELLY, ROBERT L. Theological education in America; a study of one hundred sixty-one theological schools in the United States and Canada. New York.

George H. Doran company [1924] 456 p. plates, tables, diagrs. 8°.

This inquiry was made under the auspices of the Institute of social and religious research, New York. In view of the fact that no thoroughgoing study of American theological seminaries had ever been made, it was believed that a careful investigation of Protes tant seminaries and a presentation of the results might be helpful in increasing the number and bettering the quality and distribution of Christian ministers. The data for the study were collected by means of questionnaires, supplemented by numerous personal visits to institutions and the consultation of printed sources of information. The material was subjected to thorough criticism and verification before publication. The book is not merely statistical, but it undertakes also to interpret the spirit and the tendencies underlying the service of the seminaries. Some topics discussed are the efficiency of theological seminaries as at present constituted, the grade of scholarship produced by them, the relation of the seminary to the university, seminary curricula, and the types of ministerial character created. The available facts do not show that there is a falling off in recent years in the proportion of men studying for the ministry of Protestant white churches.

Koos, LEONARD V. The high-school principal; his training, experience, and responsibilities. Boston, New York [etc.] Houghton Mifflin company [1924] xiv, 121 p. diagrs. 12°. (Riverside educational monographs, ed. by H. Suzzallo.)

The chief purpose of the investigation underlying this volume, according to its author, is to inquire into the extent to which the high-school principalship has been professionalized, as well as to assist in marking out the lines of its further professionalization. To supply the data for this study, inquiry blanks were received from the principals of 421 high schools, comprising groups representing all sizes of schools and all the principal divisions of the United States. Topics covered are the sex distribution and salaries of principals, the principal's training, his experience and professional stability, his time for administrative and supervisory activities, and his responsibilities. The book gives a concise summary of the main results of a comprehensive inquiry into the present status of American high-school principals.

LISCHKA, CHARLES N. Private schools and State laws. Washington, D. C., National Catholic welfare conference, Bureau of education, 1924. 220 p. 8°. (Education bulletins, no. 4. October, 1924.)

This book is especially intended for the information and guidance of those who administer and control private education in America. It gives only the text of laws and decisions, without attempt at interpretation. Contains the text as well as a classified summary of all State laws governing private schools, in force in 1924, together with State constitutional provisions and some important judicial opinions; also State laws and State Supreme court decisions governing Bible reading in the public schools.

OSBURN, WORTH J. Corrective arithmetic; for supervisors, teachers, and teacher-training classes. Boston, New York [etc.] Houghton Mifflin company [1924] x, 182 p. tables. 12°.

How the teaching of arithmetic in the schools may be made more effective, is told in this study by the director of educational measurements of the Wisconsin State Department of public instruction. Analyzing the errors in arithmetic made by children in various cities, Dr. Osburn finds that they are typical and not merely of a haphazard nature. Having determined this fact, he undertakes to devise a method to meet these typical difficulties. Dr. R. B. Buckingham contributes an editor's introduction to the book, which is designed to aid teachers of arithmetic, and their trainers and supervisors. RANDOLPH, EDGAR DUNNINGTON. The professional treatment of subject-matter. Baltimore, Warwick & York, inc., 1924. 202 p. 8°.

The special concern of this study is with the treatment given to subject-matter in professional schools devoted to the education of teachers.

SPAIN, CHARLES L. The platoon school; a study of the adaptation of the elementary school organization to the curriculum. New York, The Macmil

lan company, 1924. xviii, 262 p.

illus., diagrs., tables, plans.

12°.

Every new type of school organization must stand the following tests: It must square with the past; it must serve the present; it must hold abundant hope for the future. The present monograph by the deputy superintendent of schools, Detroit Mich., undertakes to subject the platoon school organization to these tests. It traces the evolution of the American elementary school curriculum from its European beginnings to the present, including twentieth century tendencies. The evolution of the elementary school organization is then similarly outlined, culminating with the reorganization of the Detroit elementary schools, 1918-1924, and the adoption of the platoon school in that system. Next comes the evolution of the elementary school building, and a discussion of educational results, costs, and the personal equation in the Detroit platoon schools. Various controversial questions concerning the platoon school are then taken up and answered. In conclusion, reasons are given for considering the platoon school system a success.

WAPLES, Douglas. Procedures in highschool teaching. New York, The Macmillan company, 1924. xx, 346 p. illus. 12°. (American teachers col. lege series. J. A. H. Keith and W. C. Bagley, editors.)

This text makes an application of the problem method of attack to the teaching of methods of instruction in high schools. A number of typical problems which arise in the school room are presented in such a way that while the students are securing a solution of these problems, they are at the same time learning the general methods and principles. The principles of teaching are not elaborated in the text, but in the references supplied in connection with the various problems.

Seven Good Christmas Books

The Book of Christmas. New York. Macmillan. 1909. 369 p. In the eight-page introduction by Hamilton Wright Mabie he says, "At the end of nearly two thousand years Christmas shows no signs of decrepitude or weariness; its danger lies not in forgetfulness but in perverted use and over-stimulated activities.... If Christmas is to be saved from desecration and kept sacred not only to faith but to friendship its sentiment must be revived year by year in the joyful celebration of the old rites." The book thus introduced, in its interesting accounts of customs, beliefs and revels, as truly as in its inclusion of beautiful carols and hymns, has certainly helped to revive these beautiful old rites. An extract from F. Hopkinson Smith's "Colonel Carter's Christmas" forms a fitting ending. Almost overwhelmed with the joyousness of the season, the reader sees "Aunt Nancy float into the room like a bubble blown along a carpet." Even those beset by care find themselves transferred to a room in which a window has been opened "letting in sunshine and the perfume of flowers." Brown, Abbie Farwell. The Christmas Angel. Boston.

Houghton Mifflin Company. 1910. 82 p.

Many young teachers will remember with joy their delight in this book when as children from eight to fifteen it was read to them by their teachers or placed on the children's Christmas shelf in the public library! They will want their pupils to know it. The author was doubtless steeped in Dickens' "Christmas Carol" and was inspired by it to write this story. The somber house in which eccentric Miss Terry lives alone is contrasted with the happy home in which Angelina Terry, 50 years before, lived and frolicked with her brother. Did such strange adventures ever before befall battered toys? Every Noah's ark and every cherished doll, whether or not named Miranda, are forever afterward dearer to child readers of this story. The happy sequel, when the reunited brother and sister and the little waif Mary sit down together to Nora's hastily prepared Christmas dinner, is almost as fascinating as its well known prototype, the Cratchitt family party which included Tiny Tim. Phillips, Ethel Calvert.

Christmas Light. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1922. 128 p.

This story of Naomi, the little Jewish girl, the daughter of Samuel the weaver, is well told. The household customs, the familiarity of all with the Old Testament stories, the unexpected opportunity which came to Naomi to accompany her aunt to Jerusalem, and the vision of the great gold and white temple of the Hebrews are incidents preparing the reader for the climax-the sight of the King in lowly Bethlehem.

Pringle, Mary P. and Urann, Clara A. Yuletide in Many Lands.

Boston. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 1916. 197 p.

A series of pictures passes before us. The Yuletide greetings and mistletoe of the Druids; the Saxons drinking from the quaint, round-bottomed tumblers which, as they could not stand, had to be emptied at a draught; the English Yuletides— "the merriest Yuletides of the past were in England"; the German Christmas with its happy families around the Christmas tree, for Christmas in no other country is so fully and heartily observed in every household; Miguel and Dolores in Spain; until finally the American Christmas known and loved by all is described. The book is a fitting record of the fact that through many centuries and in many lands Yuletide has brought joy and happiness to young and old. Schauffier, Robert. Christmas. New York. Moffat, Yard & Co. 1907. 325 p.

In an introduction of 11 pages the compiler declares his intention to introduce parents and teachers "to the host of writers, learned and quaint, human and pedantic, humorous and brilliant and profound, who have dealt technically with this fascinating subject of Christmas." The accounts of the origin, celebration, significance, and spirit of Christmas time add much of the background often lacking. The range of poems and stories is varied: Dickens, Milton, Walter Scott, Margaret Deland, Irving, Phillips Brooks, and Hans Christian Andersen contribute of their classic store. Perhaps Bret Harte's "Santa Claus at Simpson's Bar" which closes the volume finds itself for the first time associated with such decorous companions. Nevertheless, no reader who follows the tragedy of poor Dick until the cheap, flimsy toys in his pack are revealed as his contribution to Johnny's "Chrismiss" fails to find his interest aroused in helping the unfortunate children of poverty, wherever they are found, to get more Christmas cheer into their forlorn lives.

Skinner, Ada and Skinner, Eleanor. The Pearl Story Book. Stories and Legends of Winter, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Duffield. 1919.

The sister compilers rightly believe that Christmas is a part of winter and that its celebration depends upon its setting. Many new selections that are certain to prove favorites are included. A delightfully whimsical one is John P. Peters' fanciful tale of The Animals' Christmas Tree. The authors' happy thought in including Oscar Wilde's "Happy Prince" will be appreciated. Children in the intermediate grades will gladly read this book without any help from teachers

or parents.

Smith, Elva S. and Hazeltine, Alice I. Christmas in Legend and Story. Boston. Lothrop. 1915. 283 p.

The compilers of this book from their vantage ground of experience in the Pittsburgh Carnegie and the St. Louis Public Libraries found it very difficult "to find Christmas stories and legends which have literary merit, are reverent in spirit, and are also suitable for children. This collection has been made in an endeavor to meet this need." In no other collection perhaps is the Christmas of the Middle Ages so faithfully set forth. Fiona MacLeod's story of the children of the wind and the clan of peace is told as the old Highland woman told it to her, "in words simple and beautiful with the ancient idiom." The mystic thorn which blossomed at Glastonbury, England, from the planting of Joseph of Arimathea's staff is adapted from traditional sources by Selma Lagerlof. In eight pages Adelaide Steel tells the story of Babouscka who will not stop; only on Christmas Eve will she come upstairs into the nursery and give each one a present from her old apron. Sophie Jewett tells from her "God's Troubadour" the story of the Christmas at Greccio where St. Francis met with his people and the ringing bells, lighted torches, glorious hymns, and joyous shouts made one of the most vivid of all recorded Christmas times.

A Few Additional Titles

Four Collections Which Are Deservedly Popular

A Christmas Anthology. New York. T. T. Crowell & Co. 1907. Deming, Norma H. and Bemis, K. I. Pieces for Every Day the Schools Celebrate. New York. Noble & Noble. 1922. 349 p.

Dickinson, A. D. and Skinner, A. M. Children's Book of Christmas Stories. New York. Grosset & Dunlap. 1917.

Stevenson, B. E. and Stevenson, E. S. Days and Deeds. New York. Baker & Taylor Co.

Seven Stories With Christmas as Their Theme

Alden, Raymond M. Why the Chimes Rang. Indianapolis. Bobbs Merrill Co. 1920.

Brady, Cyrus Townsend. A Christmas When the West Was Young. Chicago. A. C. McClurg & Co. 1913.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. New York. E. P. Dutton & Co. 1914. 124 p.

Gladden, Washington. Santa Claus on a Lark. New York. The Century Co. Stuart, Ruth McEnery. Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets, and Other Tales. New York. Harper & Bros.

Van Dyke, Henry. The Story of the Other Wise Man. New York. Harper & Bros. 1913.

Wiggin, Kate Douglas. Bird's Christmas Carol. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1916. 69 p.

Poems Specially Appropriate to Christmas

[These poems are included in the foregoing books, though not all are in any one of them. Eighteen are in "Christmas" (by Schauffler), 11 are in "The Book of Christmas," 9 are in "A Christmas Anthology," 6 are in "Days and Deeds," etc. Many other books contain them.]

1. O Little Town of Bethlehem. Phillips Brooks.

2. The Earth Has Grown Old with Its Burden of Care. Phillips Brooks.
3. Like Small Curled Feathers White and Soft. Margaret Deland.
4. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Clement S. Moore.
Lydia A. C. Ward.
Alfred Domett.

5. Why Do Bells for Christmas Ring?
6. It Was the Calm and Silent Night.
7. God Rest You Merry Gentlemen. Dinah Maria Muloch.
8. As Joseph Was A-Walking. Old English Ballad.

9. I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In. Old English Carol.

10. There's a Song in the Air. J. G. Holland.

11. Now Has Come Our Joyful'st Feast. George Wither. 12. Under the Holly Bough. Charles Mackay.

13. Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning. Reginald Heber. 14. Christmas Bells. H. W. Longfellow.

15. The Three Kings. H. W. Longfellow.

16. On Christmas Eve the Bells Were Rung. Walter Scott.

17. Good News from Heaven the Angels Bring. Martin Luther.
18. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. Nahum Tate.
19. The Mahogany Tree. William M. Thackeray.

20. What Means This Glory Round Our Feet? James Russell Lowell. -Annie Reynolds.