The Season of Educational Revival "AMERICAN

Education Week"

which is devoted every year to arousing and renewing the enthusiasm of the Nation for the cause of education, has proved its worth. The benefits have abundantly justified the wisdom of the Commissioner of Education who introduced the practice in 1920. In each year since that time the observance has been marked by increased unanimity and increased effectiveness. It is now regular event in the American calendar. The Bureau of Education gives its aid unstintedly to promoting the occasion, and in sponsoring it the bureau is associated with the American Legion and the National Education Association. The program for this year appears on the cover of this number.

a

The part of the Bureau of Education will be similar to that of previous years. Material useful in the observance, suggestions of means, and descriptions of successful methods will be prepared in or for the bureau and will be issued by the Superintendent of Documents, an officer of the Government Printing Office, at the actual cost of printing and distribution. Definite announcement will be made as early as practicable of the titles of the special publications and their prices. The importance of an early beginning can not be too strongly emphasized.

Experiences of States coincide with experiences of individuals. Scarcely a State west of the Alleghanies but might now be enjoying a princely endowment whose income would go far to maintain all their educational activities, reducing the amounts to be raised by taxation, and, if so applied, making equality of opportunity a reality and not a mere theoretical possibility.

In the aggregate, a landed estate equal

in extent to the present boundaries of all the original thirteen States, or its equivalent in productive funds, might now constitute the endowment of public education in the United States-if ample foresight and judgment had been displayed in handling the lands which the National Government granted for education in the States upon their admission to the Union. The administration of those lands presents a continued story of neglect, waste, misappropriation, and mismanagement in which capital was in some States thoughtlessly and habitually expended for current purposes.

In many of the States practically nothing is left. One unfortunate experience after another has taken all of it. Some of those States now carry paper funds on their books and pay interest upon them to their own treasuries, using therefor moneys which were raised by current taxation. Perhaps no State has made the most that was reasonably possible from its educational endowment, but the success of a few serves to accentuate the failure of others.

Minnesota's permanent State school fund, for example, amounted to $39,357,748 on June 30, 1924. In addition, the State has a permanent university fund of $2,836,535, and a "swamp land fund" amounting to $9,498,503. Her entire educational fund, therefore, is $51,692,786. This fund has grown prodigously since its organization in 1862, and it increased by $8,500,000 between 1920 and 1924. Title to school lands amounting to 600,000 acres is still vested in the State, and much of it is in the famous Mesaba Range and

IT

Education

T MIGHT have been! How many among us might have been both wise and wealthy if we had taken advantage of all the opportunities that have come to us, conserving everything and wasting nothing. And how comfortably would our meager salaries be supplemented now if we could have the income from the capital which we failed to accumulate. We have but to look about us to see the prosperity of others whose early self-denial in circumstances no more favorable than our own has brought them ease and comfort in their advancing years.

that the royalties from the iron ore on this land will bring ultimately $80,000,000 into the State treasury for education.

Texas retained her public lands on admission to the Union, and has now a permanent school fund of more than $80,000,000 and still holds 300,000 acres of school land. Oklahoma's permanent school fund is $24,401,114, and 200,000 acres of land are unsold. South Dakota has already acquired a fund of $24,137,505, although more than 2,000,000 acres remain from which it is expected that nearly $75,000,000 will be realized. North Dakota has in hand $19,912,155, and her unsold land is expected to bring about $13,500,000 more. New Mexico

has sold relatively little of the land granted to her, and still holds for schools an area nearly equal to that of the entire State of Maryland.

Convention Results Valuable but Often Intangible

GOOD WILL and a spirit of mutual

helpfulness characterized the meetings of the World Federation of Educational Associations at Edinburgh, July 20-27. The first meeting of an unofficial organization which embraces the world in its membership could scarcely be expected to be other than a conference for the interchange of views and experiences. Definite action may, and probably will, come directly or indirectly from such a meeting, but it is scarcely possible for tangible results to be seen immediately.

European expressions upon the meeting appear to indicate the feeling that pious hopes and aspirations were the outcome "rather than definite directions for action." References were repeatedly made in the foreign educational press to a certain vagueness which pervaded the proceedings. Many of the participants, it is said, seemed scarcely to know why they were there. The resolutions adopted in the several sections "repeat a good deal that is now common knowledge and a few things that may provoke dissent," according to one account. Usually such comments are coupled with polite concessions that "appreciable progress was made," or something equally diplomatic.

Clearly the American delegation held the center of the stage, for they are prominent in every published report of the proceedings. Scotchmen, being on their own ground and therefore numerous, also made their presence felt. A Serbian delegate is said to have remarked at a luncheon that "when they spoke of all the world they did not mean America and Scotland only."

With an American as president and Americans taking a conspicuous part in much that was done, the Americans were apparently credited or charged, in great part, with the outcome. Extravagant ideas of American wealth and American achievements gained a foothold during and since the war, and possibly some of the delegates may have expected overmuch from American leadership, and may have been disappointed that the discussion and deliberation seemed to lead to no definite and immediate ends.

The Scottish accounts which have reached us, however, state emphatically that the conference was a great success, and American accounts are optimistic. Any gathering of 1,300 delegates from 70

countries in which friendly personal contacts are made and able statements of experience are presented would be rated by any American as highly successful.

It is probable that our European brethren, accustomed to governmental direction of educational affairs, do not always appreciate as Americans do the advantage of diffusion of knowledge of methods and their results.

Members of every profession, of every kind of business, and of every trade in America have an organization for mutual benefit, and they hold their conventions, local, State, and national, with great regularity and with great enthusiasm. Rarely do the conventions undertake to issue "definite instructions" to anybody upon any subject. Their principal function is to offer opportunity for each member to learn from the others of the methods and plans which those others have found successful.

As a result of such meetings, supplemented by professional, technical, and trade periodicals and other publications, and for some lines of effort by the publications of the United States Government, marked uniformity prevails throughout the United States in nearly every activity. A man's professional efficiency is often measured by his knowledge of the achievements of his fellows in similar work. Upon this basis is the American's idea of a successful convention based. To give and receive ideas is his purpose in meeting with his congeners. He has no fear that the interchange will lack abundant fruition in its season.

Index to Volume 10 Now Ready

Summer Conferences of

American Librarians

American Library Association, Special Libraries Association, and All New England Library Conference.

ADULT EDUCATION, education for librarianship, library extension including children's library work, and school libraries were the principal general topics of discussion at the annual conference of the American Library Association held at Seattle, Wash., during the week of July 6. It was shown that the association is steadily expanding its usefulness by the study and promotion of all these lines of library activity. The president's address at the opening session looked forward to the time, hoped by him to be not far distant, when a Federal Department of Education at Washington will include a bureau of libraries as one of its divisions. Action was taken looking toward the establishment of an advanced school of librarianship in Washington, and toward raising the general standard of professional library training. Progress was reported on the library survey conducted by the association.

Adult education and the library was also one of the principal subjects on the

program of the meetings of the Special

Libraries Association and the All New

England Library Conference, both held at the New Ocean House, Swampscott, Mass., the former June 24-26 and the latter June 22-27. The New England conference included a meeting of the New England College Librarians, who discussed as one of their topics adult education from the college librarian's

LIFE, volume 10, September, 1924, to June, 1925, has recently been issued. Copies may be had gratuitously upon application so long as the limited supply lasts. It will be sent in regular course to subscribers and to those libraries which are on the mailing list for the periodical.

Higher education in Kansas will be administered in future by a board of regents, consisting of nine persons, appointed by the governor without restriction as to political affiliations, residence, or connection with educational institutions. This plan is practically that suggested three years ago by the Bureau of Education of the Department of the Interior in its survey of higher institutions of Kansas. Previously, the control of the 27 State institutions, penal, eleemosynary, and educational, has been in a board of administration of which the governor was chairman.

will enable them to make their future service more effective.,

The Bureau of Education was represented at the Swampscott conferences by its librarian, Dr. J. D. Wolcott.

More than 2,500 persons of Portland, Oreg., attended 100 extension classes of college grade, arranged by the "Portland Center," one of the agencies of the extension division of the University of Oregon. These classes serve only those persons who are unable to attend the regular classes of the college. They comprise business and professional people, housekeepers, teachers, etc. Ninety-five per cent of the students are employed during the day.

Half the students of Barnard College' Columbia University, last year consulted the college occupation bureau, maintained for the placement and guidance of alumnæ and students.

Bureau of Education's Latest Publications

issued recently by the Bureau of Education of the Department of the Interior.

The following publications have been

Orders for them should be sent to the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., accompanied by the price indicated: Bibliography of science teaching in secondary schools. Comp. by Earl R. Glenn, assisted by Josephine Walker. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 13.) 20 cents. Courses in rural education offered in universities, colleges, and normal schools. (Rural school leaflet, no. 37.) 5 cents. Elementary instruction of adults.

Report of national illiteracy conference committee, Charles M. Herlihy, Chr. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 8.) 5 cents.

Gives lesson material and methods of teaching reading, writing, and conversation to adult illiterates.

Important State laws relating to education, 1922-1923. Comp. by William R. Hood. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 2.) 10 cents. Land-grant college education, 1910 to 1920. Pt. III. Agriculture. Ed. by Walton C. John. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 4.) 25 cents.

Land-grant college education, 1910 to 1920. Pt. IV. Engineering and mechanic arts. Ed. by Walton C. John. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 5.) 20 cents. List of references on student self-govern

ment and the honor system. (Library leaflet, no. 31.) 5 cents. Preparation of teachers for rural consolidated and village schools. L. J. Alleman. (Rural school leaflet, no. 38.)

Record of current educational publications, April 1, 1925. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 14.) 10 cents. Rural high school, its organization and curriculum. Emery N. Ferriss. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 10.) 10 cents. The school as the people's clubhouse. Harold O. Berg. (Physical education series, no. 6.) 5 cents.

Some lessons from a decade of rural supervision. Annie Reynolds. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 9.) 5 cents.

Contents: I. Factors leading to growth in the extent of rural-school supervision.-II. Some results secured through rural-school supervision.—III. General problems affecting success.-IV. Agencies helpful in promoting supervision. Statistics of State universities and State colleges for year ending June 30, 1924. (Bulletin, 1925, no. 12.) 5 cents. Teachers' and pupils' reading circles, sponsored or conducted by State departments of education. Ellen C. Lombard. (Home education circular, no. 7.) 5 cents.-Edith A. Wright.

T

HE term "visionary" is a derivative of vision, but the two words have come to have radically different meanings. The visionary man is building castles in the air; he builds these castles out of simple formulas which are to solve the problems of the world when once we accept them and put them into practice. The visionary man does not need science, and the last thing that he wants is painstaking collection of facts. He has the truth, he believes, and all that is necessary is to spread the light.

On the other hand, no man has accomplished great things in this world without an inspiring vision. It is vision that gives dynamic driving force. Vision holds up the arms and sustains the strength of the body in the struggle for progress when obstacles discourage and dishearten. Without vision "the people perish," so the Good Book tells us. With these preliminary observations I want to give you the vision that I have of the future of real-estate education.

Perhaps all do not fully realize the full measure of present achievement. Many of the things already accomplished are only germs that the future, it is hoped, will develop; but these germs are so sound and so vigorous that they are bound to grow. Present small beginnings indicate lines of development.

Approved Text-Books Now Available

You are all familiar with the standard real-estate courses which represent the common action of the United Y. M. C. A. Schools, the National Association of Real Estate Boards, and the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities. Each one of these organizations has a representative in an educational commission, and in this commission the Collegiate Schools of Business, also, have a representative in Dean Ralph E. Heilman, of Northwestern University. approved books are now available, and others will be appearing from time to time; so that the whole field will be covered by texts, simple and clear in

Six

Portions of an address before the Department of Education and Research of the National Association of Real Estate Boards.

exposition, but at the same time scientific.

Incidentally, I would like to call attention to a fact that is often overlooked, namely, that in the preparation of books in this new and unworked field a great deal of scientific investigation precedes and accompanies the preparation of even simple elementary texts. No one concerned with these books would by any means claim that they are free from imperfection. Scientific men and men following scientific methods make mistakes, and perfection is never reached, but improvement takes place. Apart from the books in the standard course, other books are appearing, and many of these are meritorious. We are, therefore, getting a rich literature for real-estate education, whereas a few years ago we had almost nothing. When the schools and colleges were urged to introduce real-estate courses the reply was, "Give us the textbooks and then we will introduce the courses."

Beginning on a Sound Foundation

We now have courses more or less well worked out in a large number of colleges and universities, as you have already learned, say something like 60; and outside colleges and universities we have well on toward 200 courses organized by the Y. M. C. A., or real-estate boards, or other agencies. Real-estate education is now extending from education of highschool grade up through colleges and universities, and has already made its way into the graduate schools. Research is actively going on in many quarters. Although a bare beginning has been made, such a start has been achieved; such a sound foundation laid, that looking into the future we can be sure of an immense development of the most advanced scientific work. We know very little now, but we are beginning to be wise in the way that Socrates was wise. You recall he was the wisest philosopher in all Greece, because while all the Greek philosophers knew nothing, he alone of them knew that he knew nothing. Wise men in real estate feel, and wise men who are in any way interested in realestate education now appreciate, that

they know nothing, and it is a great thing to have become sufficiently wise and to have developed enough insight to feel the need of knowledge. We have got to the point of wanting to know. We are collecting facts; we are improving our methods of research; we are learning to interpret facts. to interpret facts. We make mistakes, but mistakes are stepping stones to better and fuller knowledge. There is going to be less and less floundering about. We are going to be less visionary but to have greater vision.

Assured Support for Five Years

Our Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities is young. The germs out of which we have developed go back perhaps a generation, but it is only five years ago that we were organized as an incorporated educational institution. Our funds are limited, but they are growing in the way that promises well for research in the future. A great forward step was taken, we feel, when the National Association of Real Estate Boards decided definitely to give us a contribution each year for a period of five years.

Scientific achievement comes largely through laboratories. It is only recently, however, that economics have had anything like real laboratories where we can discover actual facts and so avoid falling into visionary theories. Now it is as cheering as it is noteworthy that we have two laboratories which properly fall within the field of real-estate education, conceiving that in its broadest terms. We have a rural laboratory and an urban laboratory. Our rural laboratory is the Fairway Farms Corporation, which was organized about a year ago. This is a nonprofit corporation which is endeavoring to help solve some of the farm land problems. What we are trying to do in the Fairway Farms Corporation is to establish standards and methods whereby men may become farm owners.

A Rural and an Urban Laboratory On the other hand, our institute is following the development of the City Housing Corporation on Long Island, where it is building a suburb only 15 minutes from the Grand Central Station. This suburb is "Sunnyside." That also is only about a year old, but we are already achieving notable results, and I believe we can see our way to the establishment of standards and methods. The movement is much quicker in urban land development than in farm land development, but even in urban land development we must be on our guard against reaching premature conclusions.

We have, then, these two laboratories; and our Institute for Research in Land

Economics as a scientific organization participates in the formulation of policies to be applied in these laboratories and uses the results of these experiments for the establishment of standards and methods. To the extent that we can establish standards and methods does our work become of general significance. There are other germs which indicate what the future is going to be in the way of real-estate education. We have beginnings in our license laws which are of recent origin but are rapidly extending over the entire country and coming to mean more and more. Educational standards are being established. Some of these are, to be sure, very feeble, but in some cases they are coming to have real meaning. Significant is it that the Madison (Wis.) Real Estate Board requires an examination as a condition of admission. The significant thing about the movement toward licensing is that it is a movement toward advancement in education and research as well as toward higher ethical standards. It was through licensing that law and medicine were able to make their greatest steps in advance. I can not say how it has been everywhere, but certainly, in general, the establishment of standards of admission for the practice of law and medicine has been one of the most important steps in the promotion of medical and legal education as we see it to-day, with its marvelous results.

No Ruthless Expulsion of Experienced Men The future is going to see standards ever rising in real-estate business. There is going to be no ruthless expulsion of the older men, but as young men enter they are going to be subjected to severer and severer tests. This is just as it should be, because the general welfare of society depends so largely upon the men in the real-estate business through whom, in the main, sales and purchases of real estate take place. A lawyer's mistake may cause us the loss of our property, but, in general, I believe the mistakes made by lawyers are not so serious as the mistakes made in the sales and purchases of landed property. They are not so lasting in their effect. To get on the land in the right way is one of the conditions of prosperity, and in the future men in the real-estate business, properly educated, are going to render a service unsurpassed by those of any other occupation or profession in bringing about this result.

Let me now turn to some other aspects of real-estate education. I have heard our presiding officer, Dean Day, say that this is far more important for the college student than courses in banking or railway transportation, because administratively most of us are not very actively concerned with banking and

railways, whereas pretty nearly everyone is concerned with the land. The owners of land as well as dealers in land need this education. I think of a future development of real-estate education of such a character that it will have as high cultural value as any college or university

course.

Land Problems are Ages Old

For the education of the real-estate operator of the future there will be a course of studies broadly cultural in their nature. The development of human history has been largely influenced by the development of land systems. Land problems were in existence thousands of years ago; they will be in existence so long as human history endures. Before political society exists among nomad pastoral tribes their life and development is often determined by their relation to the land.

The problems of to-day are fundamentally land problems. How else can we explain the development of manufactures and the contest for markets among the nations whose population and land supply have become disproportionate?

There never can be a final settlement, but only evolutionary progress and a constant improvement; and the work that is done to-day by realtors will have its influence on the land systems passed on to future generations. If we recognize this continuity in land problems in human history, and if we are going to make investigations of these problems past and present, what is it that we do not need? Certainly we need languages, history and economics, and studies of literature. Most illuminating also is this study of literature.

Investigate Land Tenure in Egypt

My associate, Prof. Michael I. Rostovtzoff, who is now going to Yale University, is one of the great authorities in the world on ancient history. His investigations fall very largely in the field of land economics. I recall one lecture that he gave to one of my classes on the large land holdings in ancient Egypt, and most fascinating it was. Looking into the future, when our institute is amply equipped with funds as are institutes in some other fields of knowledge, we may be financing an expedition into ancient Egypt and getting light upon land tenure in all its phases two thousand and more years ago. In fact, I may say that Professor Rostovtzoff has already handed in a plan for research which involves going with an associate to conduct excavations and researches in Egypt. Does this sound visionary? Indeed, it is not visionary; it is one picture in the vision. Another colleague of mine, Prof. Frederick L. Paxson, has handed in a plan for investigation of movements back and forth on the frontier

of the country. Most fascinating is his plan for examining documents, consulting those older men who are still living and bringing forward a vast fund of knowledge, interesting in itself and useful.

Indeed, I like to think of a time when the field of land economics will include workers who simply care for the truth, irrespective of any practical application. I recall that when I was at the Johns Hopkins University my colleague, Professor Rowland, one of the most distinguished physicists of his time, said that he lost all interest in his researches when they came to have practical significance. Of course, as a matter of fact, the pursuit of truth in this way does yield large practical results, and I believe that is unquestionably true with respect to the research of the late Professor Rowland.

Must Have Many Different Organizations Looking into the future, we see a federation of organizations, all encouraging education along many different lines embraced within the field of land economics. In land we have to do with a large part of the wealth of the world and with that which is the foundation of all our activities. Consequently, we must in the future, as well as in the present, have many different organizations-those interested in playgrounds, those interested in forests, those interested in the economics of minerals, etc. In the future they will work together, and the view of the whole will not be lost. At present many mistakes are made because we lose sight of interrelations of different kinds of land utilization.

con

Looking into the future, I see tributions to world peace through research in land economics. Plans will be evolved and accepted for the distribution of food and raw materials among the nations of the world which will remove one of the main causes of war in the past. I can see among these experts in land economics great outstanding men who will be called upon to help solve national and world problems with respect to the land just as men like Elihu Root are called upon to solve world problems in the field of law and legislation. More and more the truth of what Professor Fetter has said will come to be perceived, namely, that we are dealing in land economics with problems of national welfare and national survival. Is his outlook for the future visionary? I do not believe it is. Those of us who in our present daily activities are fundamentally molding the land system of the future have a social responsibility to our children and our children's children. Only by such vision can we gain the perspective which is needed to build a sound land system as a heritage of general prosperity and human happi

ness.

C

ASUAL VISITORS to West Point are likely to gain the impression that the United States Military Academy is purely a military training school. The presence of officers and soldiers everywhere; the precision with which the cadets are marched to and from meals, athletics, and classrooms; the astonishing perfection of the dress parade; the bugle calls, the military band, the cannons and round shot used for decorations throughout the grounds; all combine to emphasize the military side of the institution to the superficial observer. And yet, back of this exterior, its workings rarely seen by the visitor and little appreciated, is an academic course which shares with the military training in the development of the future officer. It is this academic course which is considered in the present article.

The name "Academy" as applied to West Point is a misnomer. To many people to-day the word implies an institution on the educational level of the secondary school. Our country abounds in academies, many of them "military academies" which are college preparatory schools of wide repute. In contrast to such academies, West Point is an institution of full college grade. The candidate who would enter West Point by certificate must present credentials showing graduation with good grades from an accredited secondary school. He must be not less than 17 years old. Thus in age and in mental qualifications the requirements of West Point are those of a college, and not those of an "academy" as the term is widely understood.

Two Months for New Adjustments

A new cadet enters West Point July 1. Fcr two months thereafter he undergoes a fairly stiff course of military training and physical "seasoning." The "plebe" experience is a trying period, a time when the boy has a whole world of new adjustments to make, a new environment, a new code to learn. It is a wise provision in the schedule that requires his admission July 1 and gives two months uninterruptedly to his initiation into his vita nuova.

Then, academic work opens September 1. Notice that this date is a full three weeks earlier than the opening in the average civilian college. The omission of long holidays at Christmas and Easter still further extends the academic year until it averages some six weeks longer than that of the college. This is precious time from the teacher's point of view.

Notice, too, that the academic work starts off with a rush. There is no period for registration; no delay of a week before recitations begin to be taken seriously; no cases of students straggling in to be enrolled in the classes 10 days or 2 weeks late. The new cadets have been in the corps since the 1st of July; the clerical force in the academic departments has during the summer made out the section rolls; in the last days of August the textbooks are distributed and the lessons announced; and the very first day of the course is an instruction day. The machine leaps from a standing start into high speed at 7.55 a. m., September 1. In the atmosphere of the section room, too, the new cadets find a marked dif

ference from what he has been accustomed to in secondary school or college. His section is small, never over 18 cadets; his instructor is an officer with the definite task before him of covering the material in the assigned lesson and of testing the preparation of each cadet on that material. Legitimate questions are promptly and concisely answered, difficulties explained, and then the burden of the recitation is transferred to the student. It may be that he is sent to the blackboard with a problem to solve; or that the instructor begins a brisk questioning around the class, interspersing his questions with comment on the significance of the material.

Throughout the period, the instructor is steadily forging ahead under high pressure, keeping his section alert and attentive, to cover the material in the day's assignment. The leisureliness of many a recitation period of high school and college, the opportunity for extended discussion leading at times far away from the subject at hand, are absent. The period is a hard, steady mental drive both for instructor and cadet.