IN United States Food Administration N planning its campaign the Food Conservation Bureau of the United States Food Administration has realized the importance of the public school as a medium for the dissemination of the ideas which are "to modify the food habits of the one hundred million of our people." It has, therefore, sought the co-operation of state universities and colleges in order to have the food conservation program reach as large a number of students as possible. A ten lesson course in conservation was prepared by a committee of domestic science experts, among whom the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Education and the United States Food Administration were represented. Every state, except one where there was no summer school, was organized, and cooperation was universally cordial. hundred and thirty-three schools received copies of the course, and several hundred thousand students were reached. Six In addition to giving the ten lesson course to summer schools, teachers' institutes were asked to aid in the work. Letters were written to state superintendents, to presidents of State Universities and Agricultural Colleges; and county commissioners, and to each of these a food conservation syllabus was sent. Replies to date have shown enthusiastic cooperation. During the first week there were requests for 28,000 copies of the lessons for institutes held during August, and requests since then have more than doubled that number. Of the first edition of these lessons, Numbers I-V, there have been distributed 12,000 copies; of numbers VI-X, 10,000 copies. With these have been distributed 145,000 broadsides on food conservation. A new edition of 400,000 copies of Lessons I-X, inclusive in one pamphlet, is in press, and orders have already been received for more than half the edition. With a realization of the enduring need of a conservation program on a broad and fundamental basis the United States Food Administration is planning with the cooperation of the Bureau of Education to place in the schools a course of study which shall be incorporated not as an emergency measure, but as a permanent problem and integral part of our freshened educational aims. The Bureau of Education will, therefore, publish, on the first of October and each month thereafter up to June, a bulletin of family and civic economics. The material will be in the form of reading and study courses for elementary and high school grades, and will cover all the topics that enter into community life. These lessons are intended to stimulate closer cooperation between the school and the community in general in solving the problems of our democracy. PROFESSOR CHARLES H. JUDD, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Chicago, has charge of the preparation of these lessons. Under his supervision, a staff of experienced teachers and educational editors will collect and arrange the necessary material. EVERY SCHOOL A NATIONAL CENTER BY JOHN H. FINLEY, Commissioner of Education, New York State. MOR I The School is first of all a center ́for that mental and moral training which is essential to the maintenance of a democracy. In New York State we have more than ten thousand of these centers and every one of them has its obligation to see that every boy and every girl within its allotted range has not only his or her opportunity, but that every one shall take advantage of it. It is universal conscription for the future State as clearly as our draft law makes conscription for the defense of the present. 2 The School is (in New York State) now a center for physical training and health education for every boy and girl of compulsory school age, eight years old or over, and for every boy and girl who remains in elementary or high school after the compulsory 166 school. This is a provision that should make for the happiness and health of millions in the years to come, and against such unfavorable physical and health conditions as those reported as the result of the draft examination. 3 The School is the center for such Red Cross activities as girls and boys are able to give under a plan which grew largely out of what the New York Schools did last year-a plan which was approved by President Wilson in his message printed in the last number. 4 The School is a center for food production activities and for food conservation in ways suggested by the federal, state and municipal administration. 5 The School is a center for accurate information about the war, information about government needs, information about opportunities and duties for personal patriotic service. No teacher or pupil can claim exemption from the obligation entailed on each partner of the nation in this war of civilization. The need of the moment is a realization of the financial needs of the war. And so it is that in this State every school has been asked to help in the Liberty Loan campaign by "teaching bonds. This is an adults' war, but the schoolhouse doors cannot shut its sounds away from the ears of our children. We must tell them what it means and guide their interest thru tangible form of service in the high cause to which we are committed as a nation. I have opposed giving the gun end of preparation and service to the youth as the only form of valor training, but I have for years been advocating a conscription beyond that of the bare elementary training-a conscription that would lead every youth to realize his obligation to the community, the State, the nation, which, together with the family, make his free development possible. For all this the school is the most available center that the nation has, and we must make it a potent one. The nation looks to the State for this particular service. Announcement! S. B. M. A. These initials stand for the School Board Members' All members of School Boards anywhere in the The Membership Fee is Three Dollars per Year! Through the establishment of a source of general EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS HAS BEEN SELECTED AS THE ORGAN OF THE ASSOCIATION AND WILL DEVOTE A DEPARTMENT EACH MONTH TO ITS WORK, BEGINNING WITH THE DECEMBER ISSUE. FOR INFORMATION ADDRESS The School Board Members' Association 31 E. 27th Street NEW YORK CITY Educational Digest and Review Department Conducted by MATTHEW PAGE ANDREWS, A. M. A Good American OR some years, MR. OTTO H. FOF KAHN, of New York, has sent out privately printed monographs on a number of subjects pertinent to matters under public discussion. These articles have a wide range, from papers on the nature of the New York Stock Exchange to attractively printed pamphlets on Art. Sometimes MR. KAHN has discussed (with wise caution), the special theme of public education. Broadly speaking, those in the teaching profession who have received these articles have read them either because of the information they conveyed and the unusually attractive style of the writer, or they have dismissed them from consideration as "some Wall Street propaganda"; and, when these papers referred to war topics, they were sometimes condemned on their face as peculiarly subtle echoes from Wilhelmstrasse! A few months ago, this Department determined to satisfy its mind on these points; so that we could inform our readers what manner of man this is, who is at one and the same time a successful banker and an author of educational brochures of unusual merit. Therefore, we "called up" MR. Kahn offhand and straightway called to see him. At first, it seemed that he had as much suspicion of our intentions as we may have had of his. Perhaps, however, this attitude was merely that of the Missourian, who has "to be shown"; for MR. KAHN soon displayed keen, if restrained, interest in things not wholly of a business character. Being in a banker's office, we were not unduly surprised at the first query of our "prospective subject" as to the nature and extent of the circulation of EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS. We were secretly pleased to have an opportunity to report progress in this respect; so that this single reference to. our business standing easily passed to a discussion of what should be the business man's attitude towards public education. We found that MR. KAHN believes that the man engaged in business should try to know more about, and take a greater interest in, public education. Perhaps he agreed with our assertion that the successful business man can be more easily deceived by appearances in the educational sphere than anywhere else; and that he is "taken in" by the shrewd and noisy "barkers" of educational claims and theories as easily as the "educator". is duped by the unscrupulous vendors. of stocks and real estate. Briefly, we know that MR. KAHN is a clear-headed man and an interesting writer. We believe he is sincerely desirous of "doing his bit" wherever. opportunity offers, as a patriotic citizen of the United States. We commend his attitude to other business. |