remolding all of the matter and forces in the educational systems of America. As one who has been engaged as a teacher and an administrator in public education for over forty years, and who has been a member of this Association for a third of a century, I want to pay my respect to the young men and women who are constantly infusing new life blood into the veins of public education, who by constantly aligning themselves with this great Association help to keep off the chill of old age and break up the incrustation of conservatism which tends to come to every institution. My congratuations to the young men and women who are unafraid, to those who see no lions in the way that cannot be overcome. In your successful efforts to reshape and recast the systems of public education in this Republic, you are the real builders of the commonwealth. This is the Olympus on which you as modern Vulcans are to forge and shape the instruments of a newer and a better educational system. In conclusion, may I ask of all you younger members of this Association that you here highly resolve that this Association itself shall not become subject to these incrusting, stratifying influences. In is history it has not been entirely free from such tendencies. Insofar as the establishment of a permanent home for this Association at Washington creates a better means for keeping the Association unfettered and untrammeled, it is to be commended. Insofar as the employment of permanent officers who have a continuing, abiding influence on the programs and the policies of this Association tend to keep the educational waters stirred, tend to keep it free from restraining influences. such a policy of employment should be continued. But we should be ever on our guard against that human tendency towards stratification into bureaus and commissions and groups which seek to perpetuate their ideas and their plans, whether such ideas and plans meet with the changing thought of the Association or not. Let us keep it an open forum where all matters are considered and settled in the open. Let us keep its door of opportunity open to all. Let us do all to preserve and strengthen this Association as a living, dynamic force for reshaping, remolding American education to meet the expanding needs of the expanding Republic. & Photo by Ralph M. Kroscher-Gibson Studios WHITE LIGHT FLOODS THE CITY'S CLOCK TOWER Close on the north embankment of the river the Wrigley Building commands the Boulevard GENERAL EDUCATIONAL NEWS AND COMMENT The Bureau of Education of the Department of the Interior has published a report on the Irish Free State prepared by the Department of Education of that country. According to this report the constitution of the Free State provides free elementary education in the national schools to all citizens. The report in part follows: "The national schools are undenominational, in the sense that they are open to the children of all creeds, but, in general, they are managed by the local clergyman to whose faith the majority of the children of each school belong. The salaries of the teachers and the grants for instruction are paid by the State. The only financial liability resting on the local managers is the provision of the cost of the equipment, repair, and maintenance of the school buildings, and, in general, the provision of one-third of the cost of the erection or improvement of schoolhouses. "The national language of the State is the Irish language, but the English language is equally recognized by the constitution as an official language. "Since the establishment of the State the Irish language has been included as an essential part of the curriculum for all national schools, and special courses of instruction in Irish have been held each year since 1922, at which approximately 5,000 teachers have already qualified to teach the language. The use of Irish as a medium of instruction in the teaching of other subjects in primary schools has also largely increased and is being encouraged where it is obvious that this can be done without injury to the general efficiency of the teaching. "The latest statistics available show that the number of national schools in operation is 5,659, affording accommodation for 547,648 pupils. The number of pupils enrolled in the schools is about 489,000; the percentage average daily attendance to the average on the rolls for the whole country is 71.8, but it is very much highe: in the chief cities and towns.' (In this connection it may be stated that bills have been introduced for the enforcement of compulsory attendance and for the compulsory teaching of the Irish language). "The number of primary teachers is approximately 13,500, and of these all the men and the vast majority of the women have undergone a full course of training for the profession of teaching. "There are five State-aided training colleges which were supplied with students under the English government by the monitorial system. The present government is taking steps to substitute for this system the more modern one of preparatory training schools similar to those that exist in France and Germany. The course of training in the training colleges is of two years' duration, and the number of qualified teachers issuing from the colleges each year is approximately 320. "Arrangements exist under which teachers who have completed their course in one of the training colleges may attend a university and obtain a diploma in education, a degree, or a higher diploma in edu cation. "The estimated State expenditure or educational services is about £4,400,000, or about one-sixth of the total government expenditure. Of this amount, about £3,650,000 is expended on elementary education and £260,000 on secondary education. The secondary education sy tem differs in many respects from the primary. Although it is financed to a very large extent by the State, the school of this system are under private contro. and are not free schools or undenomina onal. Practically all the Catholic secdary schools are conducted by religious ders. The non-Catholic secondary hools are usually owned and managed private boards. The number of secdary schools (on October 1, 1923) was I; and the number of pupils, between e ages of 12 and 19 years, in attendance as 22,156. "The secondary system was until rently entirely disconnected from the priary system, with the result that there as no co-ordination of method, aim, or rection between these two important ranches of education. "Since the establishment of the Free tate, however, the new Department of ducation has put into operation a comlete co-ordination of the two systems, ith the result that one unified education ads up now from the infant school to the nd of the secondary stage. The aim of is reorganized system has been to supply sound general education to all boys and irls up to the age of 14 and to as many as ossible up to the age of 16, and for this urpose so to conduct the primary and econdary systems of education as to abolsh the gap that hitherto existed between hem. "This object has been attained by 1. Freeing both systems up to the age f 16 from excessive specialization and rom a smattering of a variety of subjects. 2. By arranging the program in both ystems for pupils between 12 and 14 on uch lines that a pupil can go straight hrough from one system to the other without any violent change. 3. By basing the educational program n the subjects of main importance to rish boys and girls, viz: Irish, English, nathematics, history, and geology, and imple science, especially rural science. Other subjects, such as classics, modern anguages, commerce, etc., naturally play n important part in the program for secndary schools, but not such as to crush ut the main subjects.) "After the age of 16 the pupil is allowed to branch off from the general education he has hitherto received and to select those subjects which have a special cultural and educational value for him or have a definite bearing on his future career." The World Conference on Narcotic Education, which will meet at Philadelphia July 5 to 10, 1926, has been arranged to organize the agencies of society to combat the menace of narcotic drug addiction through education. The advance prospectus and tentative program of the conference estimates that there will be 5,000 delegates, representing the municipal, provincial and state, and national and imperial governments of the world. Although the committees and special groups will meet at the Bellevue-Stratford hotel, the meetings in the Exposition Auditorium, the seating capacity of which is 20,000, will be open to the public. The first two days are to be devoted to the data of narcotic education, and the last three days to the agencies and methods of narcotic education. According to plans, the various programs will be organized by such organizations as the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, Parent Teacher Association, National Education Association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Associations, and various college and scientific organizations. To overcome the lack of public knowledge resulting from extreme secretiveness of the victims and the activities of addiction, and to focus attention and thought upon the subject, a series of competitive awards, expressed by medals and money, are planned for youths and adults for essays, cartoons, and studies in all fields. In view of the development of the synthetic manufacture of narcotic drugs and the fact that official estimates place the number of drug addicts in New York City alone at 200,000, the problem has become a pressing one for the United States. Congress has voted appropriate participa tion of the federal government in the conference. It is believed that great interest will be shown by all civilized countries, as indicated in Article VII of the Agreement of the first Opium Conference of the League of Nations at Geneva: "The contracting parties shall use their utmost efforts by suitable instruction in the schools," etc. The advance headquarters of the conference is located at Room 192-A, House Office Building, Washington, D. C. * * ** In the winter and spring of 1922 the Federal Children's Bureau and the Junior Division of the United States Employment Service made a study of existing practices and policies in Vocational Guidance and Junior Placement in twelve cities where vocational guidance had reached a sufficient stage of development to make such a study worth while. A 440-page report, entitled Vocational Guidance and Junior Placement (Children's Bureau Publication No. 149), was published last year by the United States Department of Labor. The twelve cities surveyed were Boston, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Seattle, Rochester, Atlanta, Providence, and Oakland. The study was intended as a summing up, a stock taking, rather than an evaluation. It was felt that a time had been reached when the tendency was pretty general for boards of education to establish guidance work as a part of their school programs or to take over such work started by private philanthropic enterprises. Part I of this survey is an introductory section setting forth various phases of school organizations and their bearing upon guidance work and indicating generally accepted practices in vocational guidance. The school organization and the curriculum, mental measurements, school counseling, child labor laws, placement, and occupational research are some of the topics covered. Part II, the major portion of the report, is concerned with accounts of vocational guidance work in the twelve cities studied. The emphasis lies in different directions in each city and in no two cities are the organizations similar. Insofar as possible. the report is written in such form as to make comparison easy and to enable one to follow through any given phase of the work in each city. It must be borne constantly in mind, however, that vocational guidance is developing, that what was the practice in 1922 is not carried out in 1926. This is strikingly true of the work in Chicago, where one hardly recognizes the bureau described in the report as the bureau of today. The Walter Hines Page School of International Relations will open next fa at Johns Hopkins University with an initial endowment of one million dollars. The movement is headed by Owen D. Young, internationally known for his services on the committee of experts that formulated the Dawes Plan. A great body of information must be created and mobilized in some single place about all the questions which affect international relations. Some of these problems are economic; some of them are historical; some are geographical. There are experts in all these fields, but it is doubtful if there exists a man whose business it is to interrelate them. There are schools that teach many aspects of international relations, but none that is comprehensive, devoted solely to this vast subject. And, certainly, there is no single place in the world, whether library or university, where anybody can go and learn all there is to be known of these fundamental facts and interrelations. The Page School will become such a place. It will have a three-fold purpose: (1) Develop a science of international relations, (2) ascertain the facts as far as they can be found on any particular problem, and (3) produce a continually grow ing body of individuals trained in that science and available for service in gover ment, business, or education. Journal o Education. |