6 While the actual curriculum should be deter mined only as the result of prolonged and careful study by those who will be placed in educational charge, yet it seems to us desirable that it be based closely upon life and the enrichment of life, that fields of human interest be the units for curriculum construction rather than limited portions of subject matter, and that the curriculum shall not only present information concerning fields of endeavor open to women, but shall also offer courses that give the fundamental preparation on which more technical and direct training could later be based. 7 That specific provision be made for personality study, with the objects first, of helping the college to select its students; second, of helping each girl to direct her college work, to choose her vocation, and, in general, to realize her fullest potentialities in living. 8 That every step in the founding of the college be taken in the light of the best available educational thought and experience; and that specific measures be adopted at the founding to keep the college continuously abreast of the best educational thought of the time. The conference, after considering the work of its committee, voted unanimously to approve the recommendations as expressing accurately their opinions, and it was moved that they be presented to the Committee of Twenty-One as the result of the work of the Conference. At the request of the Committee of Twenty-One this committee of three was continued so that the organization committee could more easily ask for educational advice whenever situations arose that demanded it. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the conference was the lack of decided differences of opinion concerning the questions under discussion. Although those present represented many different types of educational institutions, and supposedly, many differing viewpoints on education, there was little difficulty in coming into substantial agreement on the fundamentals stated in the recommendations. That fact in itself is significant. The necessity and the desirability of the proposed college having been definitely established, the financing of the movement was the next problem to be solved. Friends of the proposed institution now feel justified in taking the next step which is the organization of a corporation known as "The Bennington College Foundation, Inc.," for which papers have been filed with the Secretary of State. In September, 1924, the International Kindergarten Union launched the first number of its new monthly periodical, Childhood Education. In the announcement which was sent out, it is stated that "the new periodical will emphasize modern thought on the education of children of pre-school, kindergarten, and primary ages; international phases of early education; scientific and experimental work in the interests of children. Two objectives are kept in mind as the editorial policy: a To provide a research journal for the student of scientific education. b To provide practical assistance to the teacher in the classroom." With a list of some of the best writers in the field as contributors and a special department given over to the National Council of Primary Education, edited by Frances Jenkins, the new journal promises a valuable and scholarly contribution to the field of child study and teaching, in the beginning years. Miss May Murray and Miss Mabel E. Osgood bring to their editorship prolific experience through their long connection with the International Kindergarten Union and its publications, and the Union is to be congratulated that it is able to retain their thoughtful work in this significant enterprise. LUCIA BURTON MORSE. The following accounts have been sent us of two new circles, one in Chicago and the other in New York, which have been formed to discuss the newer aspects of ed ucation: Out of the merging of the Chicago Kindergarten Club and the local membership of the Illinois State Kindergarten-Primary Association a new organization called the Central Council of Childhood Education has been formed. Its purposes are to promote a better understanding of child development as a whole and to establish a closer relationship between the various stages in child education. Its plans are still tentative; its first year organization an experiment. For the time being the Central Council of Childhood Education is meeting every other month for a general discussion of childhood education in perspective, or some aspect of it of equal inspiration to each of its members; in the intervening month it meets in sections for practical round table conferences on Teacher-Training, Supervision, Primary and Kindergarten procedure. It has established a State section for extension purposes. The year will close with a luncheon to which the graduating classes in the childhood education training schools are to be invited and at which movies of progressive classroom procedure will be shown. MARY MORSE. A circle for Experimental Education has recently been organized in New York for the purpose of stimulating an interchange of ideas between the leaders of progressive education. The membership is as follows: Mrs. Wesley C. Mitchell, The City and Country Miss Caroline Pratt, The City and Country School. Miss Elizabeth Goldsmith, The Walden School. Miss Margaret Pollitzer, The Walden School. Mr. Joseph K. Hart, The Survey. Mr. J. Hablonower, The Ethical Culture School. Miss Agnes de Lima. Mr. Arthur I. Gates, Columbia University. Mr. Alexander Goldenweiser, The New School for Dr. Henry R. Linville, Teachers' Union. Dr. Marion E. Kenworthy. Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Fincke, Manumit School. Mrs. Marietta L. Johnson, Edgewood School. The first meeting of the circle took place at The New School for Social Research on October 30th. A paper was read by Dr. Alexander Goldenweiser on "New Horizons in Education." It is hoped that the papers presented at the monthly meetings of the circle will appear in the Journal for Progressive Education and The Survey and will ultimately be collected into a volume. A. A. GOLDENWEISER. 1 With this number of our magazine, beginning a new year and new volume, it is fitting that we should give some words of tribute to the two artists who created for us its beautiful form. No day passes, that we do not receive letters which express appreciation for the perfection of our makeup. "I don't know who printed your mag azine," wrote one correspondent, "but there are only two men in the country who could have produced anything so fine, and one is Norman T. A. Munder of Baltimore." Our friend was right, and we have been increasingly grateful, not only for the satisfying format of Progressive Education, but for the delightful and broadening experience which association with Mr. Munder and his work has brought to us. Printing with him is a high art, and to go into his spacious outer office, is to visit a studio, which maintains in its furnishings, its pictures and examples of beautiful text, the atmosphere of the true artist and connoisseur. As to his work, we would endorse what has been written of him: "It is in doing the apparently utterly impossible that Norman T. A. Munder excels." "A printer once told me a certain thing could not be done. I ventured to say Mr. Munder had done it. 'Oh, yes,' said he, 'Mr. Munder. But, you must know that Mr. Munder is not just a printer, he is an artist. There is only one Mr. Munder.' We were led to Norman T. A. Munder & Company by Mr. Frederick Goudy, whose design we had the great good fortune to secure for the cover and general make-up of the magazine. It is his type, the "Garamont," which Mr. Munder has used for the printing. Mr. Goudy is also one who makes an art of his work, conducting the Village Press at his picturesque place near Marlboro-on-the-Hudson. He is the designer of some of the most beautiful of printing types, among them the "Kennerley," of which an English writer says: "This type is not in any sense a copy of early letter, it is original; but Mr. Goudy has studied type design to such good purpose that he has been able to restore to the Roman alphabet much of that lost humanistic character which the first Italian printers inherited from their predecessors, the scribes of the early Renaissance." To these two artists and to Mr. Munder's assistant, Mr. Stanley Engel, who has worked untiringly with us, we offer thus publicly and in the name of all our members our grateful appreciation. The subject of the next number of the quarterly will be Education and World Peace. Future numbers arranged for are The Social Studies, The New Child Study, and Creative Expression through Art. NEWS OF THE SCHOOLS ETHICAL CULTURE BRANCH SCHOOL MABEL R. GOODLANDER IGHT years ago the Ethical Culture School of New York City organized in the primary department some experimental work, which has gradually modified its teaching practice by the introduction of the freer methods of present-day progressive education. To develop these ideas further, the school has recently established a branch school at 27 West 75th Street, consisting of a kindergarten and four grades. Since education comes through experience with resulting change in conduct, the first educational essential is an environment planned from the child's point of view-a free social environment in which children live together in cooperation with their fellows, where they share in shaping their school organization, and initiate and carry on many individual and group activities of genuine interest to themselves. The school program must be flexible and offer many kinds of first-hand contact with life, in situations which encourage doing something. This includes opportunity for play and industrial work, for creative expression through the arts, for the acquisition of knowledge and skill through the school subjects, for excursions and experimentation of various sorts, as well as for social undertakings. Thus choice and action bring about the discovery of new relations, wider interest in race experience, greater sensitiveness to beauty, increasing ability to express and direct self, and so, little by little, the reconstruction of ideas and habits. The new school is organized on an all day plan, closing at 4.30, and provides a hot lunch, a rest period, and out-of-door play each day. It is hoped that this unification of his day will do much for the health and social adjustment of the city child. Each class is limited to fifteen, which makes a group small enough for the development of individual ability and for the satisfaction of the needs of each child, but large enough to encourage social undertakings which develop leadership, cooperation and self-control through the responsibility of the individual to the group. The small school makes possible an informal home-like atmosphere where children share some of the simpler duties of the household and where the free intermingling of the different groups establishes a community feeling of mutual ownership and responsibility. EXPERIMENT IN A RURAL SCHOOL FANNIE W. DUNN According to present day educational philosophy, activity of body and mind is essential to that growth in powers which we call education. The typical rural school, ostensibly established for educational purposes, actually prevents to a considerable extent these educative activities on the part of its pupils, particularly those in the primary grades. Although some repression is necessitated by the exigencies of a school where eight grades must all study, work, and recite in the same room, more freedom of individual activity is possible than is provided for in the usual rural school. Teachers College, Columbia University, has for three years been conducting an experimental rural school at Quaker Grove, New Jersey, for the purpose of working out in a typical rural situation a school organization and curriculum, which it is believed will improve the conditions of the one teacher school. Quaker Grove is a schoolhouse of the old type, but large enough to accommodate the fifty or so children who are usually enrolled. The pupils are classified in the usual eight grades, but as the result of three years' experimenting, we have worked out what appears to be a practical group organization of the grades, consisting of three groups, with the first grade further subdivided from the lowest group for work in reading. We have also developed a daily program which practically equalizes the amount of time given by the teacher to each grade. The curriculum follows the usual subject classification, since it was believed that an effective organization employing the familiar categories would be more generally helpful than a more radically organized curriculum. The program provides time for music, nature-study, industrial arts, and school clubs-an important means of education, placing upon pupils definite responsibilities for leadership and group direction or control. Under the auspices of the Book Club, we have published monthly a school paper, "The Quaker News," which records practically all school events and progress. The material for this paper is prepared by the classes as English Compo sition. A copy of the paper goes to every family in the district, and, I have reason to believe, is generally read. A large spirit of freedom, democratic organization, and self-government has been consistently developed, so that many activities besides those under the immediate direction of the teacher may be in progress at the same time. Another important part of the experiment has been the assembling or construction of educational materials and the devising of educative activities of a type which pupils can employ independently. A modification of the schemes for individual instruction devised by Washburne or employed in the Dalton Plan, is utilized to supplement the class work in several of the school subjects. THE ORCHARD SCHOOL FAYE HENLEY A contemporary writer has said that "the chief purpose of the school is to make the individual social." With this purpose fundamental the variation of one progressive school from another lies more in the particular environment of the school than in the methods employed. The Orchard School is fortunate in having a grandmother who has lent to the school a modern farmhouse in the midst of five acres of orchard land. This account of a day's activity in the school will give an idea of the environment of the school and the habits of social adaptation being formed by the children: Mary hurried through the school this morning on her way to the kitchen to get the chicken food and water, taking her father with her, describing to him the way the boys had put on dust masks and cleaned the chicken loft the day previous. "David lost his turn to take care of the chickens |