THRIFT IN GRADE VI HELPING OUR COUNTRY 1. If the population of the United States on January 1, 1918, was 102,826,300 and if a quarter of the number buys War Savings Stamps or Thrift Stamps, how many persons buy these stamps? (Remember after the war Our Government pays you back more for your War Savings Stamps than you paid for them.) 2. If you have bought 16 Thrift Stamps at 25c. each, and wish to use this in buying War Savings Stamps, in a month when the price is $4.22, how much more money must you have in order to buy the stamps? 3. We are not a very thrifty people. The average Savings Bank deposits, for every person living in New Zealand is $129. If every man, woman and child in Our Country should buy 30 War Savings Stamps when the price is $4.18 each, how much would the value of the stamps lack of being $129? 4. Most people can save $4.18 if they try to do so. Suppose that our population in July, 1918, was 102,900,000, and that one third of this number bought one War Savings Stamp at $4.18, how much money would Our Government receive from the sale? "Every little helps. $4.00 is not very much, but over $140,000,000 is a large sum." 5. By taking care of their clothes and shoes, and by avoiding waste, each pupil in a certain class helped its family save $4.20, which was enough to buy a War Savings Stamp. There were 18 pupils in the class, no two from the same family. As a result of this, how much money could the 18 families invest in War Savings Stamps? 6. Each of Our Boys at the front needs two flannel shirts, and Our Government pays $727.30 for shirts for 100 soldiers, two shirts apiece. When War Savings Stamps are selling at $4.18 each, how many stamps must be sold to give Our Government enough money to buy these shirts? 7. Our Government has to supply Our Soldiers with eating utensils, including such things as knife, fork, cup and plates. The cost of these utensils for 1,000 soldiers is $7,733. At $4.18 each, how many War Savings Stamps must be sold in order to give Our Government the money to supply these utensils to 10,000 soldiers? 8. Every soldier needs a good overcoat for the cold winter in the trenches. Such a coat costs $14.92. A village buys in one day 357 War Savings Stamps at $4.18 each. This will furnish Our Government with enough money for how many such coats, with how many cents over? 9. Every soldier wears an identification tag so that the officers will know who he is in case he is hurt by a bullet. There is not a boy or girl who cannot save or earn enough every day to buy two of these tags, for they cost only c. each. How much would you have to earn or save to buy the tags for 1,000 soldiers? CLASS MANAGEMENT CORRESPONDENCE COURSES IN TEACHING PATRIOTISM Correspondence courses in the teaching of patriotism are being offered free to teachers by Miss Leighton, of the National Security League. Thousands of teachers all over the country are taking advantage of this service, which costs them nothing but postage. They send their inquiries as to methods, or questions as to facts, their requests for helpful literature or advice as to the correlation of civics, history, and current events, and receive promptly the information or help asked for. This service is possible because the National Security League is in close touch with every school system in the country. Six thousand state and county superintendents, and tens of thousands of city superintendents are reached by its literature, and are coöperating in its campaign for patriotism through education. Hundreds of leading educators are serving on its committees. The League is able to obtain information concerning every successful experiment now in progress in the teaching of civics, history, and patriotism, and through correspondence, is able to pass on to teachers everywhere the result of such work and explain the methods used. Miss Leighton, who has been consulting teacher through the columns of educational magazines, is the author of “Wake up, Teachers of America," which first appeared in Normal Instructor and Primary Plans, and has been reprinted by other magazines, so that upwards of 200,000 copies have been circulated. She is Chairman of the Committee on Citizenship in Elementary Schools of the Bureau of Patriotism through Education, which will carry on the work of the bureau in all schools below the high schools. It will work to unify public sentiment through school forces, the branches of the National Security League and allied societies and through the recognized channels of publicity. The majority of our people, our voters, therefore our rulers, enter industry from the grammar schools, unequipped by training to understand this government that they form and direct. Certain communities have, through experiment, established valuable courses in civics and in community history and citizenship training. By courtesy of these communities the Committee hopes to disseminate knowledge of this successful work throughout the country. Taking as its creed the motto of the National Security League “Knowledge by the people is the sole basis of national security," the Committee hopes to inspire the schools of the nation to give to the children of America a thorough education in the ideals of true American citizenship. The Committee is therefore sending out, for preliminary investigation, a Civics Inquiry in the hope that teachers and school officials everywhere will feel called on to send to the Committee their answers to the questions, since "in a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom." This problem of citizenship teaching is a national one and can be rightly solved only by the combined wisdom and experience of the educators of the country. It is a problem which concerns every one of 750,000 teachers who are urged to take part in the discussion. It concerns every father and mother in the country; their views are also invited. Any helpful suggestions for the teaching of patriotism and all inquiries as to matter and methods should be addressed to Etta V. Leighton, Chairman of the Committee on Citizenship in Elementary Schools, Bureau of Patriotism through Education, National Security League, 19 W. 44th St., New York City. CIVICS INQUIRY 1. What, in your opinion, constitutes valuable Civic Instruction? 2. Should Civics Instruction begin in the first grade? 3. Should it be treated in the early grades separately or incidentally? 4. In what grade should it be handled as a separate subject? 5. Would you favor examinations in Civics separate from the history examinations? 6. Do you think Civics and Patriotism can be taught incidentally? 7. Is there danger that in teaching Civics and Patriotism incidentally the rush work in the class room may cause such teaching to be relegated to the tomorrow-which does not always come? 8. Do you think the consensus of opinion among teachers would favor a Civics Syllabus revision according to present needs? 9. Would you favor providing each teacher with a statement of fundamental American Doctrines? 10. What, in your opinion, is the best way to teach Patriotism? THE NATIONAL SECURITY LEAGUE, ETTA V. LEIGHTON, Chairman, Committee on Citizenship in Elementary Schools. THE LONELY TREE BY WILFRED WILSON GIBSON A twisted ash, a ragged fir, A silver birch with leaves astir. Men talk of forests broad and deep, Tho I love forests deep and wide, The brave, wind-beaten, lonely tree A twisted ash, a ragged fir, BOOKS AND REVIEWS The Exceptional Child. By Maximilian P. E. Groszmann, Pd.D. New York, Boston, Chicago: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917. Pp. XXXIII-764. (Price, $2.50.) The book is divided into three parts. In part one the author devotes eleven chapters to "The Problem of the Individual Child." Probably the best chapters in part one are the ones on "Different Civilization Levels" and "Juvenile Delinquency." In the chapter on "Different Civilization Levels" the author explains the existence of different types of men by the theory that there are "different civilization levels and that each individual represents mental and moral attitudes characteristic of one or several of these levels." He further states that "this theory implies that each individual born into this world passes from infancy to childhood and maturity through a series of developmental stages which broadly represent the consecutive stages of civilization through which the human race has passed." This recapitulation theory with its educational parallel "the epoch culture theory" runs through the entire book, and forms the basis of the author's social, educational, and psychological principles. On the basis of this theory, he classifies the life of a child from babyhood to maturity into five periods: "The Infancy Period (from birth to 2 or 3 years); the Primary Period (2 or 3 to about 6 or 7 years); the Elementary Period (from about 6 to 11 years); the Intermediate Period (12 to 15 years); the Advanced Period (16 to 21 years)." The author seems to make this theory go a long way, for he explains the crimes of the Black Hand, the Mafia, etc., on the basis of this theory. However the validity of this theory is quite questionable. Professor Thorndike of Columbia University, in his Educational Psychology, Vol. 1, Original Nature of Man, page 258, has this to say about the recapitulation theory: "On the whole, the recapitulation theory in the case of mental traits seems to be an attractive speculation with no more truth behind it than the fact that when a repetition of phylogeny, abbreviated and modified, is a useful way of producing an individual, he may be produced that way. . Consequently one cannot help thinking that the influence which it has excited upon students of human nature is due, not to rational claims, but to its rhetorical attractiveness." In the chapter on "Juvenile Delinquency" the author takes a broad point of view of the situation, and makes some splendid recommendations as to the care and treatment of delinquent children. In part two, the author discusses the "Problem of Clinical Research and Diagnosis." Most of the chapters are devoted to a discussion of the physical and mental tests used by him in his own clinic. In the chapter, "The Binet Scale of Intelligence," he gives a splendid criticism of the BinetSimon scale, criticizing the test material and pointing out the inadequacy of the mental age. However, it is not quite clear how Dr. Groszmann differentiates between the mental age as used by Binet and his own classi fication of an individual's life into five periods with their corresponding age levels. A more apparent contradiction in the use of mental age levels occurs in a resolution for the extention of compulsory education laws, framed by the author for the N. E. A. in July, 1913, in which he says in part (pages 389)"—that the laws should recognize the difference between the chronological age of a child and his maturity, and that the school-age limit of each individual child be determined by requiring the child to meet physical and mental tests, even though the child be in years above the age standard; in other words, a child's actual age should be determined by physio-phychological data corresponding to the normal standard for the age limit required by law" (the italics are the reviewer's.) The author himself realizes the discrepency and says, "The wording is not quite in accord with the ideas presented in this volume, but clear enough to be revised in the sense of the author's own statements." The chapter on "The Meaning of an Educational Clinic," gives an excellent exposition of the meaning and function of an educational clinic. The educational clinic, it is said, "Should be presided over by an expert educator, who has not only the technical, scientific training of his profession, but also a deep sympathy with child nature, one who can read a child's soul, who can win the confidence of a child, who believes in the child. He must have psychological training in order to understand the genetic problems of the child mind." Such an individual, would indeed make an ideal examiner, yet on the very next page (page 275) in speaking of a system of tests it is stated, "The technic and routine should be so simplified that intelligent and well-trained school superintendents, supervising principals, and even teachers may be found, to be willing and capable of receiving special training in conducting their local educational clinics." Dr. Groszmann's recommendations tend to encourage self-styled mental testers who, though they may have mastered the technique of giving tests, have little or no psychological training. Of what use then is such testing? If anything, such testing tends to decrease the realiability of the results of any future examinations that may be made by an expert examiner. Though Dr. Groszmann says, "Naturally the results of this testing can be only tentative, but it will help them to differentiate between children of different types, and to make them desirous of referring cases to psychological and medical experts and clinics for further advice"; nevertheless, how many people after they have learned the technique, realize that their results are only tentative? With their superficial knowledge of the tests, they are tempted to dabble in things that should only be handled by experts. If Dr. Groszmann's book makes such testers realize that a mere knowledge of tests is not sufficient to enable them to make a diagnosis and a prognosis of a child's mentality, he will have accomplished a great deal. In the chapter on "Schedule of Tests" the author explains and illustrates the system of mental tests used by him in his educational clinic. The tests are taken from many sources and are supplemented by the author's own contribution. |