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These are but a few of the practical problems that face these teachers. There are many others. For one, the problem of discipline for boys and girls used to cruelty and suppression. Here self-government is being more and more put very genuinely into practice, and the Boy Scout movement helps.

There is the great problem of physical education and training in actual play for children who have, many of them, forgotten how to play at all, and where little girls, indeed, were never supposed to. Need one mention the difficulties of any artistic training where life is reduced to such bare elemental terms? The children show their desire for something beautiful in pinning up even little scraps of colored paper. A small girl satisfies her oriental passion for color by wearing a piece of orange peel. The teachers must find some way of providing for these artistic creative instincts at least in the industrial work.

And what of religious education in these wholly non-sectarian institutions, which are, however, the children's only homes? Every effort is being made to build up strong character and ideals in these boys and girls, in whom lies so much hope for the future of this backward land. To do this, orphanage life must be made to correspond as much as possible to the situation of real life outside. Small family groups are organized with older children responsible for helping the younger ones. The teachers find it helps to have each child have some personal possession he can call his own. Older boys and girls in some places are even given a small sum for their work, out of which they pay for their board and clothes.

But there is one difficulty which the Near East schoolteacher never has. There are no truants-no truant officer necessary. The eagerness, the actual avidity of these little folk to learn, is, indeed, almost pathetic, but it means that every effort of the teacher is wonderfully repaid.

In the Near East Relief refugee camp schools there are even greater problems, if that were possible. Here the teachers gather together a few hundred children who have fled with their parents before the fighting line. These little schools started like howling

menageries of dirty, hungry children. Baths and a noonday lunch form a very essential part of the school curriculum. Soon order is established, and real work being done, which will at least keep the children out of harm and help them along a little during their temporary or prolonged exile.

In many places not actually refugee camps there are large numbers of destitute, half-orphaned children, whom the Near East Relief can only touch through the soup kitchen and old clothing distribution. Mothers will mourn: "If I were only dead he might be in the orphanage and get a chance." So the Near East Relief is trying to do something in the way of a little schooling for these children, either with the orphans or apart. Sometimes it is a little school for children of women who are employed in the industries, or a night class for workers. Everywhere over the great area of the Near East, in these many forms, the problems of education press heavily upon the adventurous American Relief worker and his corps of faithful native teachers. The progress made in two years of organized work has been in every way most encouraging, in spite of danger and hardship, lack of equipment and scarcity of funds.

One can, indeed, hope for good results from the work of the energetic little training schools, where Armenian teachers face these great questions and try to solve some of the difficulties involved in educating this eager young Armenia that is growing up under the Silver Star of the Near East Relief.

American Notes-Editorial

The new Commissioner of Education, in his first report, states that "a crisis exists in American education which is fully as acute as that which exists in the business world. The extent of illiteracy among native Americans, the inability of large numbers of the people to understand our language or to appreciate our institutions and ideals, the failure to provide proper training for young people on the farms, the lack of efficient means of physical education, and the necessity for better methods of school financing, are among the most serious problems that confront Americans of this generation.

"More than two-thirds of the schools of the United States are rural schools. Notwithstanding the efforts that have been put forth in their behalf during recent years, they still constitute the most unsatisfactory part of our public school system. And it is in the country that the greater part of the illiteracy among native Americans is to be found. There is urgent need for authoritative studies of organization, administration, courses of study, methods of teaching, and adaptation of the work of rural schools to the life and needs of the communities which they serve. The reports of these studies should interpret to taxpayers and legislators, as well as to teachers and school officers, the plans and methods which are proved to be the most effective and economical, and should constantly hold up such standards and ideals as are reasonably attainable.

"The establishment of health and correct health habits and the best types of physical education must be considered most important and vital factors in any education that is to fit for life. It would be tremendously wasteful for every large city, or for all the states, to conduct independently the research necessary to establish the principles and to formulate the constructive program demanded by public policy in these matters.

The drift of population to cities and towns continues. In all the centers of population a very large proportion of the children in the school are children of foreign-born parents. This adds to the complexity and difficulty of the problems of city school administration. We were all startled by the revelations, during the war, of the extent to which the safety and solidarity of our nation are threatened by the inability of large numbers of our people to understand the English language and by the prevailing ignorance of the fundamental principles upon which our form of government is based and of the ideals toward which we are striving. The several states are studying

their problems, but there is urgent need of a central agency which can make immediately available to all the results of any experiment which proves successful, and which can supply the constant stimulus to better things which can come only from effective leadership. This is obviously a function of the Federal Government.

"State and municipal systems of taxation and their relation to school finance and the support of public education, are among the major problems that confront us. A few thousand dollars spent in research by experts capable of doing constructive work, would save the taxpayers of the country many times the sums thus expended. Improved methods of accounting, the determination of unit costs, and the extended use of the budget system, would save much of the waste that has unfortunately characterized many educational institutions and school systems."

Commissioner Tigert's report not only sets forth in striking terms the means by which the Bureau in his charge may become a still greater factor in American education, but it describes the valuable work which it already has accomplished. One of its functions is to make "surveys" of state, county, and city school systems, and of individual schools or groups of schools, and to report to the proper local authorities the results of its investigations together with constructive recommendations. Many important pedagogical problems have been analyyzed and brought nearer to solution through the instrumentality of these surveys. Eleven of them were conducted during the year covered by this report.

Another feature of the Bureau's work which has developed in the past few years is in holding national or regional "conferences" on educational subjects or for educational purposes. In many of them citizens in all walks of life were invited to participate freely; others were for the consideration of special topics, like rural education, highway engineering, Americanization, industrial education, commercial education, negro education, etc., and they brought together persons whose especial interest is in the subjects discussed in the conference. Thirty conferences, including both types, were held during the year 1920-21."

An excellent object-lesson on the "Project method" is furnished in an interesting account of "How One School Studied the Paper Industry," by Bessie Allen, in charge of eighth grade school exhibit at Fond du Lac, Wis. It was written by Miss Allen for the "Paper and Pulp Industry," the monthly publication of the American Paper and Pulp Association.

"In Grammar," says Miss Allen, "our work was both oral and written. The oral work consisted of talks about the history of paper and its manufacture. The class wrote compositions on "The History of Paper," "The Manufacture of Paper from Rags," and "The Manufacture of Paper from Wood." These compositions were bound together in a booklet. Further work was the letters written for information regarding the paper industry. The letters sent and received were bound in another booklet. These included material and suggestions provided by the American Paper and Pulp Association. In our Physiology class we studied the sanitary uses of paper, making a collection of drinking cups, paper towels, soap leaves, paper napkins, cellulose and sputum cups. We also studied conditions under which paper is made from the viewpoint of the employee's health, finding that the average length of life of a paper mill employee is not abnormally short. Our Arithmetic work consisted of original problems and those taken from our text. They dealt with paper measure area, papering, and thrift. In Spelling we made a collection from our text of the words dealing with paper, and of the new words in our composition. In the Drawing class we made the posters and covers for our booklets. In the Citizenship class, on the days we devoted to Thrift, we talked about thrift in the use of paper. These talks gave us some of our Arithmetic problems, for example, if each child wasted one sheet of paper a day, how many sheets would be wasted in our school in a year? We also talked about baling waste paper. The boys made a miniature baler, copied after the one used by the school. For Reading we used articles from books from the library. As Manual Training and Domestic Science were taught at the high school, the work in these subjects was done in talks in Grammar or in outside time. For Manual Training the boys made a poster showing the different kinds of paper used in building. They also made a small two-roomed house showing the use of tar and building paper, beaver board, pulp plaster, and wall paper. For Domestic Science, the girls gave talks on the use of paper in the kitchen and as a labor saver in the home. They collected a picnic set of paper, including cover, napkins, plates, cups, ice-cream dishes, forks, spoons, finger-bowls and paper towels. They also made a poster showing some uses of paper for decoration."

Great care should be taken by every teacher, from the kindergarten to the university, not to antagonize the pupil. Setting a pupil right when he is in the wrong, correcting him where he or his work is faulty, is often a necessary duty and an essential part of a teacher's

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