their strong points and their weak ones. The ideal, of course, is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a single student on the other.

A little booklet-"How Can We Get Enough Good Teachers?"-soon to be published discusses this problem more cogently than I've seen it explained before. It gives a grand write-up to the Illinois Chamber teacher-recruitment program. It may be obtained from the National Citizens Commission for the Public Schools, 2 West 45th Street, New York 36.

The facts are, however, that we must find some new solution to this teacher-pupil ratio problem. If we hold to the ratio of 30 pupils to one well-qualified teacher, 64 percent of all college graduates would have to choose teaching as their profession this year to supply the needed teachers, and over one-half of them would have to choose teaching every year from now until 1964!

This proportion is obviously fantastic and impossible. Here, then, is an area where

new inventions and ideas are needed in education as much as the invention of penicillin or polio cures in medicine. Some time ago, Dr. William Vincent, when at Pennsylvania State College, made an experiment on the teaching of general science. In one group he had the teacher-a good trained one, by the way-teach the general science course by traditional methods. In another group he had all the teaching of factual knowledge done by motion picture films. He determined afterwards by extensive tests that the child taught from the films learned the material in half the time it took to do it in the teacher-led class, and that there was no essential difference in the amount that the two groups learned.

Of course, it's true that a teacher can do many things that a film cannot do. I wonder, however, whether it may not be possible in many areas where we are dealing mainly with factual knowledge to redefine the role of the teacher to do things that only she can do, and have more of her routine duties handled by less skilled people or by different methods. As an instance of this, if a single class in general science could be taught in a group of 300 rather than 30, nine teacher hours would be released to work individually with pupils on problems that cannot be handled satisfactorily in groups.

Such methods in other professions where personnel shortages exist have produced

startling results. For example, the nurse shortage in our hospitals has been acute for a long time. During the last 15 years, major strides have been made through new ways of handling patients where relatively untrained nurses' aids have taken over many of the routine functions formerly performed by nurses, leaving the latter free to do the more important things which only trained people can handle adequately. I wonder if a real opportunity does not exist in somewhat the same sense in education. Indeed, this is the only major profession I know in which the labor-saving invention has not already been adopted.

The Atom for Progress

(Continued from page 107)

wish merely to present strength, but also the desire and the hope for peace.

The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions. In this Assembly; in the capitals and military headquarters of the world; in the hearts of men everywhere, be they governors or governed, may they be the decisions which will lead this world out of fear and into peace.

To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you-and therefore before the world-its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma-to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.

Successful Transition

(Continued from page 101)

The process by which desegregation was begun and by which progress has been made toward integration included teachers as well as students. One of the most serious

questions raised when the process of integration begins is: "What happens to Negro teachers?" Under the New Jersey plan the number has increased. In 1945-46 there were in that State 479 Negro teachers of whom 415 were teaching in 9 counties operating a dual school system. Last school year there were 645, of whom 425 were in areas formerly maintaining separate schools. The experience in Indiana reinforces that of New Jersey. While a few Negro teachers have lost their positions in the making of changes, the overall picture is that the total number of opportunities is usually increased.

Many persons have referred to the suc cessful elimination of segregation in other areas as evidence of the feasibility of eliminating segregation in education. In both the briefs and oral arguments of the appellants and the Attorney General, presented to the Supreme Court in December, evidence was given that the old patterns of segregation are disappearing. It has been suggested that if desegregation can take place among adults in the armed services, housing, industry, health, and recreation, it should be even easier in education where younger persons, with less rigid attitudes and fewer prejudices than adults, are involved. Moreover, it has been observed that practices in schools have a close relation to practices in society generally; hence, trends in desegregation in other areas have considerable relevance here. Examples in some of these areas are given below. Armed Services

On July 26, 1948, the President issued Executive Order No. 9981 which provided among other things "that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin." The order also established a Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services which, in its report, presented evidence and summarized the results of experiences in the integration. of Negroes in the three major branches of the services."

personnel.

The Air Force set to work to evolve a policy which would simultaneously improve the efficiency of the service and extend equality of treatment and opportunity to all personnel. The Committee reported that almost without exception, the commanders interviewed by the Committee's staff stated that they had put the new policy into effect with some misgivings. After their experience in effecting the policy, the Committee found, in fact, that inequality had contributed to inefficiency. On the basis of its examination into the rules, procedures, and practices of the armed services, both past and present, the Committee is convinced that a policy of equality of treatment and opportunity will make for a better Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Freedom to Serve, Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. A Report of the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1950.

The Committee found that under segregated conditions, Negro units could not offer as wide a range of jobs as white units. Because the jobs were not available in segregated units, Negroes were often not given the military occupational specialty for which they were qualified. Because they were not given the opportunity to qualify for the jobs, they did not receive school training in these specialties. The end result was not only unequal opportunity for the Negro but a poorer, less efficient army.

With this situation in mind, the Committee submitted to the Army in May 1949 a four-point plan to achieve the President's objective:

1. Open up all Army jobs to qualified personnel without regard to race or color.

2. Open up all Army schools to qualified personnel without regard to race or color.

3. Rescind the policy restricting Negro assignments to racial units and overhead installations, and assign all Army personnel according to individual ability and Army need.

4. Abolish the racial quota.s Collins George, staff writer for The Detroit Free Press, in a series of articles on racial integration in the Armed Forces, reported in that daily during May 1952:

The Army, with its greater number of Negro personnel, Negro units and Negro officers, faced correspondingly greater difficulty in enforcing the new policy than the other branches of the service. Yet, at the time of my tour of Army posts in 1951, enormously great strides had been made. The Negro recruit, entering the service at that time, found no segregation at the reception centers, North or South. In the training division, the picture was the same. The recruit served side by side with other recruits, slept, ate, played, and worshipped side by side without thought of race . . . and without racial incident.

In a recently published study based on personal interviews, Lee Nichols reports that:

A by-product of military racial integration which likewise could have a deep impact on civilian patterns in the United States, was the movement to end segregated schooling for children of service personnel.

With the same lack of publicity that marked racial integration in the military services, the system of segregated schools on some military bases began to vanish. By the summer of 1953, federally operated schools had quietly opened their doors to

8 lbid.

children of all races living on at least eight southern army, navy, air force and marine bases. The last existing segregated federal school, at Fort Benning, Georgia, began operating on a non-segregated basis with the 1953 fall term. Steps were under way, with the personal backing of President Eisenhower, to end segregation in some twentyone schools operated by State or local agencies on southern bases."

The story of integration in each Southern base school was a drama in itself. However, it has taken place without serious incident. For example, Mrs. Mildred Poole, a white North Carolinian by birth, who was trained in her native State, and also in New York and Tennessee, said that her integrated school at Fort Bragg "never had the first problem between a teacher and a child, a child and a child, or parent and a parent; all the difficulty came from outside." 10

Better Education

(Continued from page 103)

scout leaders, YMCA and YWCA personnel, court employees, and parents in his program for gifted, as well as maladjusted, youth.

This program is projected for a 10-year period with children aged 9 or 10. It is not limited to children with high intelligence but includes those with extraordinary talent in art, music and writing. Andthis is important-it also includes children with special abilities in mechanics, science, dramatics, athletics, human relationships, and social organization. One of Dr. Havighurst's associates in this project is Dr. Allison Davis.

Because teachers and administrators throughout America are seeking more ef fective ways of teaching rapid learnersand because parents are concerned—a committee of eight staff members in the Office of Education has been studying this problem during the past year. They have identified promising educational practices for both rapid and slow learners in such areas as administration, guidance, English, social studies, mathematics, science, industrial arts, and home economics. Their first published report of effective practices, procedures, and programs will be available this spring. It should be of interest and

value to both teachers and public-minded persons.

In concluding my remarks about ways in which citizens have helped and may help educators to improve the schools, I wish to make a generalization or two. In our country the schools belong to the people. But citizens who want to work. with the board of education, the administrative staff, and the teachers have an obligation first to study and understand the local problems and in some cases the State or regional conditions. Then they are in a position to help with school-community work programs, juvenile delinquency, teacher recruitment, financial support of education, and similar problems.

In working with others, let us not lose sight of all the forces that have made America great. Foremost among these forces are liberty and equality: These are the cardinal principles of our fundamental law-the Constitution of the United States. Abraham Lincoln observed with respect to the importance of and reverence for this great law of the land:

"Let it be taught in the schools; in seminaries; in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books and almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in our courts of justice. And in short, let it become the political religion of the Nation."

We all recognize, however, that in spite of the greatness of our country, in spite of the progress that has been made, there are still inequities in the application of some of our laws, particularly with respect to the rights guaranteed to all our citizens by the Constitution. The answer to this problem, as President Eisenhower so aptly put it in his State of the Union Message in February 1953, is: "Much of the answer lies in the power of fact, fully publicized; of persuasion, honestly pressed; and of conscience, justly aroused. These are methods familiar to our way of life, tested and proven wise." Our schools can help us in the task ahead-e even more than in the past. In no other nation of the world has free public education been available for so many years to so many children, youth, and adults. Education has helped to guide us from a small beginning to a great present. But most important of all, it promises to each of us, our children, and their children an unprecedented future: a life of understanding, happiness, and justice, in the long tomorrows that stretch ahead.

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1954

School Buildings Should Be Safe

by Samuel Miller Brownell

Commissioner of Education Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

THE

HE recent explosion and fire in the Cleveland Hill Elementary School at Cheektowaga, New York, which has taken the lives of 15 children, has shocked the entire Nation.

It is deplorable, indeed, that this tragedy could happen. It is also alarming to know how many school buildings there are throughout the United States which are of combustible construction or may be regarded as fire hazards.

Children are compelled by law to attend school. Such a compulsion places a clear moral responsibility on each community to see that the child attends in a safe building. It places upon all school authorities an equal responsibility to be vigilant in seeing that the buildings and equip ment are maintained as safely as possible.

The Report of the Status Phase of the School Facilities Survey, an office publication revealing school building needs and the status of school housing, as reported by State departments of education, indicates that 35 percent of all the school children in our Nation attend classes in combustible-construction buildings. Eighteen percent of all school children, according to the reports from State departments of education, are housed in structures which do not meet minimum fire-safety conditions. Another 16 percent are in buildings which are only "possibly" acceptable as to fire-safety conditions.

These calculations have been based on the questionable assumption that all one-story buildings are fire-safe, regardless of the type of construction.

The 18 percent of all school children housed in structures which do not meet fire-safety conditions, when broken down by States for the 43 States included in the School Facilities Survey, range from 2 percent in one State to 54 percent in another State.

As We Go to Press

The opinion of the United States Supreme Court on the school segregation cases was delivered by Chief Justice Warren on May 17. Because of the nationwide interest in this opinion, SCHOOL LIFE delayed publication of this issue so as to include the opinion in full, excluding footnotes. See page 117.

Published each month of the school year, October through June

To order SCHOOL LIFE send your check or money order (no stamps) with your subscription request to the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C. SCHOOL LIFE service comes to you at a subscription price of $1.25. Yearly fee to countries in which the frank of the U. S. Government is not recognized is $1.75. A discount of 25 percent is allowed on orders for 100 copies or more sent to one address within the United States. Printing of SCHOOL LIFE has been approved by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget. (September 19, 1952.)

Contents of this publication are not copyrighted, and items contained herein may be reprinted "to promote the cause of education."' Citation of SCHOOL LIFE, official periodical of the U. S. Office of Education, as the source, will be appreciated.

The opinions and points of view expressed in articles by guest authors do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Office of Education.

THE OFFICE OF EDUCATION was established in 1867 "for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories, and of diffusing such information respecting the organization and management of schools and school systems and methods of teaching, as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country."

SCHOOL LIFE is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, and in Education Index... .(Single copy price of SCHOOL LIFE-15 cents)

Year is announced in the June issue of McCall's Magazine. "Mr. Widerberg's gift," according to McCall's, "lies in his ability to make his students think. With encouragement from him, and with a certain amount of coaching at first, they learn to tackle a variety of problems-personal, civic, political, scientific-and to devise a method of solving them. . . . What is important to their teacher is that they learn how to attack a problem, make a decision, and follow it through to a conclusion."

The Teacher of the Year project is sponsored by the Office of Education in cooperation with the National Council of Chief State School Officers and McCall's. This is the third consecutive year such an honor has been conferred. Nominations are made by State departments of education, and the work of the candidates is observed by representatives of the Office of Education. The final selection is made by the editors of McCall's.

Mr. Widerberg is the first man to be

Volume 36, Number 8

named Teacher of the Year. He shares this year's headlines with eleven teachers from seven States, who earned special mention on McCall's Honor Roll of Teachers.

Mr. Widerberg's approach to his work as a 7th grade core teacher at DeKalb Junior High School has given his classes an air of purposeful learning. He has two groups of 7th grade students, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each meets for two hours and 25 minutes of integrated instruction in social studies, language arts, and science. For the students this has become a time of total pupil growth-emotional, mental, and physical. Students then have single periods of 45 minutes each for mathematics, homemaking, shop, and other subjects.

Mr. Widerberg works toward this goal of unified study through cooperative studentteacher planning which could be typified by the question he often asks his students. "What seems the best way for us to proceed?" This group involvement in the problem at hand and the successful use of the classroom as a working laboratory de

pend largely on the sensitivity, originality, and intelligence which this remarkable teacher displays. He seems to understand the behavior and the needs of each individual child. This awareness has won him the respect and love of his students, who greatly appreciate his honesty and his understanding.

Mr. Widerberg does not talk about "methods" of teaching he talks about understanding the whole child and about wanting to teach him the principles of democratic everyday living. To do so, he must himself be an example of working democracy and be able to catch overtones that indicate group feeling. This he does as an artist in human relations. In such a relaxed, yet purposeful, atmosphere the students can move ahead on projects that result from their own questions and problems and achieve skills in learning and living.

Mr. Widerberg studied education at Northern Illinois State Teachers College and DePauw University after serving in (Continued on page 126)

113