"The General Federation of Women's Clubs has been an important factor in creating and disseminating the new social sympathy. Shall it hesitate to go on with the beneficient work because it is afraid to use political tools so long monopolized by self-seeking men?"

Small wonder that with her clear insight and vision, Miss Addams is an earnest suffrage

leader. Constantly working as she has, for a

tion and civil service laws, to combat the white slave traffic, to better tuberculosis conditions, she had a realizing sense of the insistent need that "the cultural outlook on life must become as aggressive as the commercial, as widespread and as deeply rooted in conviction" and that women must awake, efface prejudice and fearlessly step forward and claim for their uses the long withheld leverage of the ballot.

Is corporal punishment losing ground?

E. W. H. Surely, there will be ebb tide and flood tide as in everything else, but capital punishment, the whipping post, and the whipping of children in home and school are to lose favor steadily. They are not in sympathy with the age. This is not saying that corporal punishment is always objectionable or that it is not often the shortest way to results, but you did not ask for opinion as to corporal punishment, but merely as to their tendency.

Honest now, is there any tangible evidence that this school agricultural club scheme really helps the women in the home, or the home for the women? V. A. G.

Sure, a lot of it. In one district in Virginia, fourteen homes put in screens last year, and not a few have had a screen before. Nothing has ever done so much for farm homes.

The president of our Women's Club asked me the other day what they could do for school girls especially. They would like to differentiate their work for girls. M. O. N.

Let them send one or more girls each year to the Domestic Science Department Short Course at the Agricultural College.

Can you tell me anything about the very precocious children at Harvard College of which there was an article in one of the popular magazines some years ago? A. R. I.

There were three children of Professor A. A. Berle, of Tufts College, who entered Harvard at as early an age as is usually allowed, and graduated early, and had a highly creditable record. Much was said of them, but there was nothing phenomenal about their case, except that they were brilliant children, and were exceedingly well looked after by their parents both of whom are scholarly people. The Sidis and Wiener boys are in an entirely different class. One interesting fact is that the fathers, Boris Sidis and Leo Wiener were Russians, who came to this country, both at the age of 20. These children are so precocious as to entirelly outclass ordinary children, and we are not inclined to accept as valuable the lessons drawn from their precocity. Norbert Wiener entered Tufts College at ten, was graduated at fourteen; and at seventeen earned the degree of Ph. D. at Harvard. William Sidis, entered the Brookline high school at eight, but never did regular work, being too advanced in some phases of knowledge even then. He entered Harvard University for irregular study before he was in his teens. But young Sidis' precocity makes

it impossible to predicate anything on his erratic achievements.

Why is the acre taken as a unit in Corn Clubs? A. L. L.

O. H. Benson says:

"Because it is the business unit of the farm, because it labels the boy's work as a man's job, and because the profit is worth while."

Can you not find some way to hearten, cheer and encourage the teachers? L. A. P.

That is an exceedingly wise suggestion. There is no doubt but that any progressive writer or speaker on education falls into the habit of suggesting new things so vigorously that it disheartens the routine teacher. It is not easy for any progressive speaker and writer to hearten a teacher who does not want to be progressive. There seems to be no way to comfort a person who wants to stand pat at a time when the whole spirit of the day is aggressive. It is not easy to praise a last year's hat when every one else has new Easter millinery. It is not easy to praise a house that has had no new paint for five years. It is not easy to compliment a teacher who keeps children after school, when no one else keeps children after school, or one who teaches duodecimals very thoroughly when no one else has taught duodecimals for two years. It is not easy to praise the tailender while they are laurel crowning the winner. If teachers want to be heartened they want to be doing the things that give the heart.

What are the authentic figures for boys' and girls' clubs and their results? B. O. S.

I think the United States Department of Agriculture has put out a statement for 1913 as follows: 91,196 boys in the Clubs of the South. More than 500 school boys raised more than 100 bushels of corn to the acre. There were 33,060 girls in the canning clubs of the South.

Is it any one's business where a rural teacher goes to church or whether she goes at all or not?

None whatever so far as the legal aspect goes. You are employed to teach school. But there is another side to it. You ought to teach school in order to be of the greatest assistance to the boys and girls and to the community. Usually this means that you be religious and respect the religious convictions of the community. Personally, I think a teacher should respect the religious convictions of the community if there is any preponderence of sentiment. On the other hand I should not be a boomer for my denomination or for any place of religious thought. That is, I should not be so orthodox as to distress a few liberals, or so liberal as to distress a few orthodox. In short, I should try to do what I thought would do most for the uplift of a community.

The women teachers scarcely realized what a friend they had in President Swain until he started in on the peroration of his annual address. Equal pay for equal work, positions open to candidates regardless of sex, higher salaries for teachers sabbatical year, retirement provisions and finally "votes for women"-all in a few sentences from the annual address of the president of the National Education Association-almost took their breath away. They didn't quite realize it until they got together for a midnight conference at the League of Teachers Associations headquarters. (Men no longer take the cake as N. E. A. night owls.)

If every officer and committee chairman could submit reports in the unique and charming manner in which the treasurer's report was submitted at St. Paul there would never be any discussions of exceptions, only immediate adoption. The N. E. A. is to be congratulated on being able to hold Miss Shepherd in her present position for another year.

The "classroom teachers" made the start in their new department created at Salt Lake City. Miss Elizabeth Rood, kindergarten director in the St. Paul Normal School, was an excellent choice for the first president. Just what the evolution of the department will be is a question, of course. For the time being, with Miss Haley as one of the dominating influences it probably will not be concerned entirely with pedagogical problems. This year it took up many of the same problems with which the League of Teachers' Associations is naturally concerned. Eventually it may follow the lines of work usually taken up by such departments as those of the secondary school teachers and the normal school teachers. But in the past grade teachers have come to the convention only from the immediate locality of the meeting so that it would be somewhat difficult to carry on continuous work along any line. If grade teachers are coming to the convention in the future in larger numbers and from a much larger field, this fear is ungrounded.

One of the prettiest tributes of the week was that paid to Mrs. Ella Flagg Young by Miss Haley. Mrs. Young was not at St. Paul. On July 8 she sailed for Europe at the request of the Chicago Board of Education. "Her trip has great significance," said Miss Haley:"When she returns she will not recommend the adoption of the German caste system of education."

Dr. and Mrs. Claxton were both on the program,Commissioner Claxton for nine different sessions.

"The Status of Woman," was ably treated by Miss Sopronisba Preston Breckenbridge of Chicago University, Miss Emma Maud Perkins of Western Reserve University, President Mary E. Woolley of Mt. Holyoke College and Dean Lois Kimball Mathews of the University of Wisconsin.

Officers of the Department of Elementary EducationMiss Margaret E. Schallenberger, Sacramento, president; Adelaide Steele Baylor, Indianapolis, vice-president; Mary E. Foster, Plattsmouth, Nebraska, secretary.

ORGANIZING THE WOMEN TEACHERS

When the League of Teachers' Associations showed its first signs of activity at Salt Lake City last year few realized its potentialities. Few of the men realized it this year, but the few who dropped into its sessions and listened to President Grace Baldwin's annual address and reports of progress by delegates from east and west were greatly impressed. They appreciated its importance and were sure that it has a future. What sort of a future is the question that interested them.

The delegates in St. Paul represented 30,000 teachers organized in local clubs. Four thousand more came in when Miss Isabel E. Ennis of Brooklyn arrived. Clubs enrolling hundreds more are coming into the League at their first Fall meeting, and next Summer at Oakland we may expect to see well nigh 100,000 grade and high school teachers represented through, members of their clubs. Their representation is systematically apportioned, two delegates for the first 100 teachers in each club and one delegate for each 100 beyond the first 100. In the fullest sense of the phrase it is a mutual benefit association. With high professional principles, it is at the same time a protective organization, and it will be one of the most promising cures for the "timidity of teachers" which Miss Haley so deplores. Miss Haley's interest in the League is at present as intense as her in terest in the other prodigy which had its birth at Salt Lake City, the Department of Classroom Teachers.

The meetings this year brought enlightening reports of what teachers' clubs had done in matters of salary, pensions, tenure of office and in a dozen other lines of activity, social and professional. Forceful speakers told of what organized teachers had done to help themselves in cities in Maryland, New York, Illinois, Iowa, Col

orado, Indiana, Missouri, California, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, Utah, Massachusetts, Kansas and in Vancouver. Miss Grace DeGraff of Portland, Oregon, Miss Baldwin of Minneapolis, Miss Haley and others told of ways in which the League had helped teachers who could not help themselves.

Salaries will always be a leading feature of the League's work, probably. Pensions will be studied thoroughly beginning this year. The League will always be on guard against specific cases of injustices of any sort to grade and high school teachers.

Under the leadership of such women as now direct its affairs the League of Teachers Federation has a splendid future. Its presence at the N. E. A. meetings is going to be a real asset to the convention.

THE HINTERLAND OF THE SALARY QUESTION

Miss Haley's solution of the salary question was not included in the recommendations of the Committee on Teachers' Salaries and the Cost of Living. She told the Department of Classroom Teachers why. 'It was not because the President of the N. E. A. objected, or because the other gentleman at the committee meeting objected, but because a representative of the metropolis of this great Republic, the city where vested wrongs are considered vested rights, objected."

But here it is:

"Back of every proposition for an increase in teachers salaries lies the question of the adequacy of public funds to meet such an increase. Second in importance only to the salary studies made by this committee, therefore, is the study of local finance, and particularly the new sources of local revenue and the elimination of evasion and special favors in the collection of present taxes. The possibilities of unearned increment taxes in our cities are a major importance in this connection. The National Education Association should, therefore, make prompt and adequate preparation for a thorough investigation of this rich Hinterland to the whole subject of teachers salaries."

a story of a justly famous fight by teachers in the metropolis of the New World.

some

Miss Haley first marshaled her figures, using Illinois as the cruel example, to show that fortunate teachers were paid as high a wage as carpenters are paid, some nearly as much as coal miners, and many so little that there is no class of laborers to compare them with. Then she told the teachers why. Because they were timid, and timid because they did not have assurance of tenure of office, because men politicians decided their fate and men politicians care only for the fate of those who have the ballot in their hands. Get the vote, get justice, and then only will teachers be efficient. Q. E. D.

on

Miss Haley was glad that the N. E. A. had "at last stopped trying to get blood out of a turnip and realized that the solution of the question of efficient teaching is in giving teachers something to eat and something to wear." The present investigation of the Committee Teachers' Salaries, Tenure and Pensions is what the N. E. A. has delayed so long and she told of great results in view. The Bureau of Education brought out the report of progress already made ("The Tangible Rewards of Teaching," in 470 pages) and Miss Haley asked that supplementary statements be published as the figures are gathered. Commissioner Claxton agreed on the spot.

Those who have heard Miss Haley talk know the force of her picturesque arguments. Equal suffrage arguments have been made before the N. E. A. before, but never before under such favorable conditions. The immense municipal auditorium was filled, the men present could all have been seated on the platform with room to spare, and applause reverberated in that auditorium.

Others on the program were: President Dabney of Cincinnati, who described in happy terms the college teachers who in no such militant way appreciate their own pitiable condition in the matter of material rewards; Walter I. Hamilton of Massachusetts, who has probably made a more thorough study of pensions than anyone else in the country; Commissioner Claxton, Dr. Johnson, Superintendent Wolfe of San Antonio and Superintendent Carr of Bayonne, N. J.

None of the speakers so much as hinted at raising an issue with the headliners. They knew better.

CAN YOU IMAGINE?

If the N. E. A. directors of a generation ago could have been on the platform of the general session Tuesday afternoon and listened to the cool, sarcastic arraignment of unequal pay for equal work by Miss Grace Strachan, and the ringing exhortation by Miss Margaret Haley to "the teachers of America, the most timid rabbits in the world,"-if they had been there, what would have been their thoughts?

The making of the program for that session was a stroke of uncommon genius.

Topic: Teachers' Salaries and Pensions.

"Present Salaries of Teachers"-Margaret A. Haley, business representative, Chicago Teachers' Federation. "Salaries Based on Position and Not on Sex"-Grace C. Strachan, district superintendent of schools, New York City.

Perhaps it looks no more than ordinarily promising. But "Present Salaries of Teachers" led to an analysis of economic, social and political conditions and the Fate of the Republic, with "Votes for Women" as the answer; and "Salaries Based on Position and Not on Sex" was

THE PEACE WORKERS

For the sixth time the American School Peace League met with the N. E. A. N. E. A. members now looked for the Peace headquarters and Mrs. Fannie Fern Andrews as one of the regular features of the convention, and few events of the week attract more interest locally than the delivering of the four orations on peace subjects by the winners of the state-wide contest and the awarding of a gold medal to the pupil who presents the finest argument.

J. Fred Anderson of Salt Lake City, who was local executive secretary of the N. E. A., last year, and Miss Maude E. Phillips of Boston, helped Mrs. Andrews entertain at the League headquarters. On the program of the Peace League this year besides Mrs. Andrews were E. H. Scannell, organizing secretary of the Canadian Peace Centenary Association, and Commissioner Claxton, who presented the prize oration medal to Clyde H. Frederickson of South Minneapolis.

"I will not go to school to-day,"
Said little Tommy Green,
"I'll stay out in the grassy fields
Where buds and flowers are seen."
He lay down underneath a tree,
Threw books and slates away,-
'Tis nicer here than in the school
And here I mean to stay."
Just then a crow up in a tree
Said "Caw caw," what a dunce,

Pick up your book, and get your slate
And go to school at once.

You idle boy, you waste your time,
Unlike a busy crow,

You come out here to lie all day
To school you ought to go.

PITTSBURGH TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION

DUCATIONAL reconstruction took place in Pittsburgh when it became apparent to the teachers that they must apply the spark to the social condition which indifferently permitted a decentralized, and for the most part, demoralized system of school administration to prey upon the taxpayers and shamelessly expoit the schools for personal aggrandizement.

Our mission in this cause was not heralded from the skies, but rather by necessity, which could not adjust an 1869 salary to life in 1904.

With the exception of $50 the question of an increase in salaries had been carefully avoided by the Central Board for 35 years, but the cost of living had steadily increased until it became necessary for teachers to make a demand that must be recognized. This seemed feasible since taxpayers had met appropriations for years without specific accounting by the Central Board.

When approached, a member of the board said, "If any person can get the taxpayers of Pittsburgh to offer the money and demand an increase in teachers' salaries, then the salaries will be increased. The teachers can do nothing."

With this text the teachers in the Garfield School led by Miss Marion V. Neeper, a seventh grade teacher, went to work. Facts, figures and conditions were ascertained, accumulated and brought to the attention of prominent citizens; ministers, editors, business men and club women wrote and spoke in public meetings upon this subject; salary lists comparative with other cities were arranged, mimeographed, and with a pamphlet, "Why Salaries Should be Increased in Pittsburgh," distributed to every teacher in the city and widely to the public. Personal calls were made upon every teacher and the necessity for organization was understood. An organization was effected at a mass meeting held April 20, 1904, attended by almost 100 per cent. of the grade teachers.

Miss Clarissa A. Moffitt was unanimously elected our first president and to her splendid leadership much of our success may be attributed. The touchstones, "Is it right? Is it true?" were the ruling elements in our deliberations and from the decisions we never swerved in the execution of our plans.

The Constitution as adopted states our object, "To promote the welfare of the public schools and to improve the character of the work therem; to cultivate a spirit of sympathy and good will among the teachers; to develop the abilities and resources of the individual members and promote their welfare generally; to create in the community at large a deeper sense of the dignity of the teachers' profession and the importance of the interests they represent; and to create and maintain a fund for the proper execution of the corporate purpose."

October 11, 1904, the Teachers Association pre

sented to the Central Board a volume containing 70,000 signatures of voters, property owners and parents with a request for a living salary and a future financial recognition of merit, suggesting that two years be taken to decide upon a plan for determining efficiency.

December 13, 1904, the Board responded to this by creating a "Teachers' Salary Commission" composed of the Superintendent of Schools, Director of High Schools, Head of the Normal Department, Head of the Academical Department of the High School, and one Elementary School Principal. This commission was given unlimited power to divide teachers into two classes,-A, receiving $800; B, receiving $900, without a rule to guide or bind them, and with the understanding that its report to the board should be final and conclusive, both upon the applicant and the board.

At a mass meeting the association decided to accept the conditions although with serious misgivings as to the wisdom of this course.

April 15, and September 9, 1905, written examinations were held in the high school. Five hundred and twenty-six teachers took these examinations, of whom 272 were reported efficient, 254 reported unworthy of classification. In every building in the city with less than half a dozen exceptions a trifle over 50 per cent. of the teachers applying for Class B were passed by the commission. So unsatisfactory was this report not only to teachers, but to many local board members and the general public, that the association asked for an authentic record of the number of applicants and the number passed, and were refused. A second rquest by the association that the Salary Commission retain intact all applications filed by eligible applicants for enrollment in Class B, Pittsburgh teachers, and all papers of said applicants submitted at the written investigations was rewarded with the information that these were "matters of record and would be kept intact... to justify its action in arriving at results."

At the request of the association stating that it had admitted through the press that mistakes had been made, several local boards made efforts to secure information as to what were the requirements for enrollment in Class B, but without success-no information as to the methods of classification could be secured.

Then a protest was made by the association to the Central Board clearly stating the charge of the use of secret and unjust methods of classification and asking reparation.

To this request for justice a terse reply signed by the secretary of the board stated that "the communication was read, received, and ordered. filed, and that the matter complained of could not be considered this year."

The Salary Commission persistently refused to give any information whatever as to its methods and were invariably sustained by the board.

The association then proposed the appointment