boy for? Wasn't it to be a man and do a man's work?

Could he find a greater Cause than this to live or die for?

You should be proud if he can be a Soldier.

You must send him out with a smile. Courage! You must help him to be brave.

We must all help one another to be brave and unselfish.

For America!

ITTLE teacher of the one-room

In this big work of food conservation what is your part? Are you going to help win the war by giving your own daily service?

If this message reaches you, and you stand up, face front, and join the "Soldiers of the Commissary," write to the Food Administration at Washington to say you have enlisted.

Do you remember the President's April message calling you to the "Service Army"-that "notable and honored host"? This message has gone to you in many ways. Did you receive it? Perhaps you got it in the ten lessons on food conservation given at the summer normal. If not, you can get the booklet from the Conservation Bureau, Food Administration, Washington, D. C. Study these lessons carefully and re-arrange them if necessary, to meet conditions where you will teach this winter.

Here is your part: You are to see that this message reaches every woman in your school district. First, get it by heart yourself. Then see that it reaches the home thru school

rallies, afternoon courses on food con servation timed to suit the women, and individual work in the home.

Many first aids are ready for you. The Department of Agriculture at Washington will send you, if you ask, a number of bulletins that will help you to teach your community food saving, food preserving and economical use of available foods. Other bulletins can be secured from your State Agricultural College. Next, get all the help you can from your state and local organizations for food conservation, and organize community work under their direction. Study all your material carefully before you begin work and determine just what should be the line of attack in your neighborhood. A rally and speeches will make a good start; but yours will be the hard follow-up work.

The course of lessons issued by the Food Administration will tell you definite and immediate things to do. Stick to fundamentals:

1. The wise and careful use of wheat, meat, butter fat, and milk. 2. Save by using something just as good for the family but not so much

needed by our armies and allies-for instance; the use of other fats than butter in cooking, the use of other cereals for part of the wheat in bread, the free use of game, fish, poultry, eggs and cheese to reduce the demand for beef, pork and mutton.

3. Conserve all perishable foodstuffs of the farm by eating freely in season, and saving for out of season by canning, drying and preserving.

Another valuable field of work lies before you in organizing all available agencies to stimulate the production of cattle, sheep, hogs and fowls. The question is not only to make the present food

supply

go

around,

but to increase production in 1918.

In taking the lead in your community, you will not be doing something easy; but—the men in the trenches have a tougher job. Go at it, and help will spring to your side. Call in all the aids the county superintendent, the county demonstrator, the president of the nearest bank, the preacher, and especially the women of your district—but depend on your own determination to help win this fight.

Every American teacher is needed as a volunteer member of the Food Administration. Your country calls you and will call until you answer, "Here am I."

Suggestions for a program of school activity for different types of educational institutions during the war have been issued by DR. P. P. CLAXTON, United States Commissioner of Education. After pointing out that attendance laws should be enforced as usual, DR. CLAXTON says:

"Parents should be encouraged to make all possible efforts to keep their children in school and should have public or private help when they can not do so without it. Many young children will lack the home care given them in times of peace, and there will be need of many more kindergartens and Montessori schools than we now have.

Larger High School Attendance

"The attendance in the high schools should be increased, and more boys and girls should be induced to remain until their course is completed. A school year of four terms of 12 weeks each is recommended for the high schools, as for the elementary schools. In the high schools adopting this plan arrangements should be made for halftime attendance, according to the Fitchburg, Cincinnati, and Spartanburg, S. C., plans, for a large proportion of pupils as possible.

"All laboratories and manual-training shops in high schools should be run at their full capacity. In many of

Schools

"For all boys and girls who can not attend the day sessions of the high schools, continuation classes should be formed, to meet at such times as may be arranged during working hours or in the evening. All cities should maintain evening schools for adult men and women. In cities having considerable numbers of immigrants, evening schools should be maintained for them with classes in English, in civics, and such other subjects as will be helpful to these foreigners in understanding our industrial, social, civic, and political life.

Strengthening the Normal Schools

"In few States is the supply of broadly educated and well-trained teachers equal to the demand. The normal schools should double their energies and use all their funds in the most economic way for the work of preparing teachers. Appropriations for the support of normal schools should be largely increased, as should

full advantage of the opportunities offered by the colleges, universities, and technical schools, to the end that they may be able to render the most effective service in the later years of the war and the times of need that will follow. Practically all women students should remain, and all boys and girls graduating from high schools should be urged to enter college, technical school, or normal school.

"All students should be made to understand that it is their duty to give to their country and to the world the best and fullest possible measure of service, and that both will need more than they will get of that high type of service which only men and women of the best education and training can give. Patriotism and the desire to serve humanity may require of these young men and women the exercise of that very high type of self-restraint that will keep them to their tasks of preparation until the time comes when they can render service which can not be rendered by others.

"In agricultural colleges special intensive courses should be given to pre

pare teachers, directors, and supervisors of agriculture and practical farm superintendents. It should be remembered that the scientific knowledge and the supervising and directing skill of these men and their ability to increase the productive capacity of thousands of men of less knowledge and skill are far more valuable than the work they can do as farm hands. The total number of agricultural students in all colleges is only a fraction more than one-tenth of 1 per cent of the total number of persons engaged in agriculture, or about 13 in 10,000-not enough to affect materially the agricultural production of the country by their labor, but enough to affect it immensely by their directive power when their college courses have been finished.

"No college, university, or technical school that can avoid it should permit its faculty or student body to be scattered or its energies to be dissipated. All should redouble their energies and concentrate them on those things that will be of most service during the progress of the war and which will prepare their students for the most effective service of the country and of the world when the war is over."

GOVERNMENT REPORT ON

COLORED SCHOOLS

With national unity and solidarity the problem of the hour, special interest attaches to the comprehensive report on Negro Education issued by the Department of the Interior through the Bureau of Education. In this report the economic and educational problems of the ten million

Negroes in the United States are presented as a background for a detailed study of more than seven hundred colored schools, and the problem of Education for the Negroes is shown as affecting the entire country, North and South.

The report on Negro Education was prepared after four years of first hand study, made by DR. THOMAS JESSE JONES, and a corps of assistants in various fields of education, working under the direction of DR. P. P. CLAXTON, U. S. Commissioner of Education. The study was made possible through the cooperation of the PhelpsStokes Fund, of New York, with the Bureau of Education.

The first volume of the report discusses features of general educational progress, with special reference to the Negro, and includes such topics as: public facilities for Negro education; industrial education; agricultural and rural education; secondary education for Negroes; college and professional education; buildings and grounds; finances; history of Negro education. Volume II comprises descriptions of the more than 700 schools visited by the Bureau's agents, arranged by States and counties. It is believed that the specific facts given in connection with each of these schools will be of genuine assistance to the large number of individuals and organizations that contribute money for Negro schools, making it possible to discriminate between worthy and unworthy schools.

In his report DR. JONES says:

"No racial group in the United States offers so many problems of economic and social adjustment as the 10,000,000 Negroes. Negroes form

almost a third of the total population of the Southern States. In Mississippi and South Carolina, they constitute over half the population; and in the 'black belt' counties, the proportion ranges from 50 to 90 per cent. The significance of such a concentration is difficult to explain to those not familiar with communities composed of people who differ widely not only in economic and educational status but also in ethnic type.

"In the 50 years since freedom was decreed, Negro illiteracy has decreased from over 90 per cent to 30 per cent; nearly 1,000,000 colored men are now farmers of varying degrees of independence; a quarter of a million own their own farms and the total acreage of land owned by Negroes aggregates 20,000,000 acres of fertile soil. These facts are indisputable evidence not only that the colored people are capable of progress but also that their white neighbors have looked with favor upon their struggles and in many instances have actually given substantial aid to their endeavors.

"As the Negroes are the primary element that give rise to the problem, so are they becoming more and more an important factor in its solution. Their contribution includes both an increasing financial support and an ever larger proportion of the teaching force. They contribute not only a goodly share of the taxes for their public schools, but also a considerable sum toward the private schools. Furthermore, the colored people give considerable sums to extend the terms of the public schools. It is probable that their total gifts aggregate $500,000 annually over and above their share of the public taxes.

"Next to the Negroes, the group most concerned in this problem are the 20,500,000 white people of the South. No plan for the improvement of the colored group is well considered that does not contemplate the cooperation of the white group.

"Though the Northern States are not so immediately concerned in the education of the Negro race as the South or the Negroes themselves, the northern point of view and northern philanthropy are just as essential to the proper solution of the vexed problem as the other two elements. The total annual contribution of the North for the current expenses of the private schools aggregates $2,500,000. Of this fully a million and a half is given by the white churches for their denominational schools and another $1,000,000 is contributed by individual donors and churches for the maintenance of the independent institutions. Property valuations in the private institutions founded by northern gifts now amount to $24,000,000."

The conclusions drawn by the report are in brief as follows:

(1) That there is a pressing need for increased public school facilities for Negroes in the South.

(2) That the aid of philanthropy should be continued with the present liberality until the South has attained to a better economic condition.

(3) That all education should stress, first, the development of character, including the simple but fundamental virtues of cleanliness, order, perseverance, and the qualities essential to the home, and second, adaptation to the needs of the pupil and the community.