The motion was agreed to, and the committee named were Hon. Wm. F. Shay, N. P. West, and J. R. Spiegel.

Dr. Schaeffer took an opportunity to invite the members to visit the rooms of the Department of Public Instruction.

AMENDMENT TO CONSTITUTION.

The following amendment to the Constitution, laid over from last year, was called up for action :

Amendment of Art. III: It shall be composed of delegates from the Boards of Education of Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Allegheny City, from organized County Associations of School Directors, the present and past officers of this Association, and from organized Associations of School Directors in cities and boroughs having separate Teachers' Institutes, with the State, County, City, Borough and Township Superintendents and Principals of Normal Schools as advisory members. Each of the said Boards and Associations shall be entitled to send five representatives, and shall notify the corresponding secretary of their names and addresses.

B. J. Sykes, Clearfield county, said there ought to be some provision for notifying directors of the Convention. The programme should be sent so as to reach them in some way.

G. D. Swain, Butler county, endorsed the last speaker. He had no notice of the time of meeting, but caught on to an announcement in The Pennsylvania School Journal, otherwise he would not have been here.

President Eastburn said every superintendent had been written to by him, and in cases like Clearfield and Butler it was neglect on the part of those officers.

S. M. Wakefield, Fayette county, said if school boards would take The School Journal as the law authorizes, at expense of the district, and read it, they would always have timely warning of educational events.

A motion to postpone the consideration of the amendment was lost by a close vote of 23 to 25, and it was then adopted without a division.

HIGH SCHOOL APPROPRIATION.

John J. O'Donnell, of Columbia county, read the following preamble and resolutions, which were referred to the proper committee:

WHEREAS, The Assembly of the Commonwealth of the State of Pennsylvania

Act to regulate the establishment, classification and maintenance of high schools, the distribution of appropriations in aid of high schools and the employment of teachers receiving State aid; and.

WHEREAS, Sec. 1 of said act provides that the directors or controllers of any school district may establish a public high school; and,

WHEREAS, Sec. 3 of the same act provides that a high school maintaining four years study beyond the branches of learning prescribed to be taught in the common schools and called the common branches, shall be known as a high school of the first grade; a high school maintaining three years of study beyond the common branches, shall be known as a high school of the second grade; and a high school maintaining two years' study beyond the common branches shall be known as a high school of the third grade; and,

WHEREAS, Sec. 4 of said act provides that from the annual appropriations in aid of high schools, a high school of the first grade shall each year receive a sum not exceeding eight hundred dollars, a high school of the second grade not exceeding six hundred dollars, a high school of the third grade a sum not exceeding four hundred dollars; and,

WHEREAS, The schools of this commonwealth seeking to be benefited by the provisions of that act have not received the aid intended, because no appropriation has as yet been made by the legislatare of this State to meet the requirements of the above-named act; therefore,

Resolved, That we, the members of this convention and the representatives of the school interests of the people of this Commonwealth, believing in the wisdom of the act of Assembly of 1895, in making such provision, do earnestly request that an appropriation be made by the next legislature to meet the requirements of said act; and,

Resolved, That this convention use every legitimate means in its power to secure such legislation as shall provide for such appro

priation.

partnership, in which there are three partners, the teacher, the parent and the director. Each contributes something to its success and participates to some extent in the profits.

Each has rights which should be respected and duties which should be performed. And the greatest return in profits comes from this business when each knows his rights and will insist upon them, and at the same time is willing to perform his duties when each aids all in the participation of rights, and all aid each in the performance of duties.

To the teacher is entrusted the actual work of instruction. To perform his duties aright, "he should be an active, aggressive, intelligent compound of love, zeal, wisdom, virtue and justice. To him virtue is its own reward, and he receives little of any other kind on this side the Eternal City."

The parent supplies the running expenses of the business and the capital stock which is invested. This, invested for a period of eight or nine years, is his child, the most precious asset in all the world to him. And its value as a living and working entity in the wisdom and wealth of the world will depend to a very large extent upon the education which it receives during this period. From this investment the parent has a right to expect large dividends in intelligence, virtue, wisdom and culture; in sterling character, right habits, correct morals, pure patriotism, noble manhood and true womanhood.

Functions of the Director.-The director is the business manager of this partnership. In him is vested the power to do anything and everything necessary to the operation of the school as a business institution. His duties are both local and legal. He represents the people, he also represents the state. But he is the representative rather than the servant of the people. While he represents them, he is under no legal obligation to obey their mandate. He stands as firmly upon the principle of uninstructed representation as a member of congress. He is the person who directs educational affairs for them, not the person or thing directed by them. The people have the right to petition and to protest, but not the right to dictate or direct Herein lies the weakness of many directors. They think themselves under obligation to do what the people want. They fail to see that this obligation is political, not legal. The voice of conscience, judgment, justice and right, rather than the voice of the people, should govern the director. what the people want, but "what the children need," should be his motto. Men are often ignorant of their real needs. The voice of the people is not always the voice of wisdom or the voice of God. When the people cried, "Crucify Him," the minority who thought differently was very small. The director may be in the minority in his district, but he may also be in the right.

Not

And right should never take instructions from wrong. The director represents the people, but he is their uninstructed representative. He is to think and act for them; to direct the affairs so that his district may secure what the children need, rather than what the people want. The people often want cheap schools, cheap teachers, short terms, because these may be had for a low tax; but these are antagonistic to the real needs of the child.

But the director represents the State as well as the people. The State supports a school system in order that it may have a wise, virtuous, intelligent, patriotic citizenship. To this end it establishes the school and vests in the director its complete management. Trne, it lays down limitations beyond which he may not go, but within these lines "he is monarch of all he surveys." He is practically uninstructed by the State, and, if conditions will permit, may make of his school a college. He is thus the complete, uninstructed and almost uulimited business manager of the school system.

But the director is more than the business actor in the school problem. As the business manager he practically controls its professional progress. With his hand on the financial lever, he may aid or retard this progress at pleasure. His vote means substantial financial aid for or against every improvement. It will enrich or expand, or impoverish and contract the curriculum. It means to his school a living, active, intelligent, progressive, professional teacher, or a lifeless, indifferent, mechanical bungler. It means growth or decay, life or death, to the professional spirit of education in the district. He can make of his community a valley of dry bones, of which the prophet may say with assurance, "These bones can never live," or he can make it one teeming with professional life and spirit. His influence is thus either positive and helpful, or negative and hurtful. He may either start, encourage and direct the professional side of education, or he may discourage, retard, hinder and stop it. He may either be a destructive force, or a constructive cause; a wise master-builder, or an arbitrary iconoclast. The Pennsylvania school laws make all this possible. This supremacy of the local board is its fundamental principle. This principle makes the director the complete, independent, uninstructed business manager of the school system, and at the same time vests in him the authority which indirectly enables him to control its professional progress.

Responsibility of the Directors. -Accepted authority means assumed responsibility. To the director the measure of the former is surpassed only by the magnitude of the latter. This responsibility has a financial, a civic, and a moral aspect.

The financial responsibility is recognized when we remember that the director an

nually disburses in this State almost $20,

000,000..

The civic responsibility is greater even than the financial. The State is mercenary. Its motives are egoistic. It supports schools to make citizens. From the civic standpoint education is simply the training which the State gives to those who are to be its citizens, that the intelligence, advancement and civilization of one age may be retained and made the basis of still greater achievement. All civic progress depends upon the virtue and intelligence of the citizen; these depend upon the school; and the school depends upon the director, who practically controls its business and professional management.

The moral responsibility of the director is far greater than the civic. We are all consumers of the common stock of accumulated worth. He who contributes more than he consumes is a benefactor, while he who draws in excess of his contribution is a moral beggar. The world is getting better because the moral accumulations of the benefactors surpass the draughts of beggars. Every child in every school will be either a beggar or a benefactor. His moral worth will depend upon his education; his education, upon his school; and his school, upon the director. Life is a warfare. Every child is a soldier. The battle is unto death. Shall the child be one of the victors, or one of the vanquished? Shall he go down the pathway of life morally and intellectually a strong, sturdy, stalwart giant; or a helpless, hopeless pigmy? The director who provides the school, selects the teacher, and thus in a large measure determines the nature and extent of his education, must answer this question.

This responsibility is recognized in two ways. First, by the oath which the states require the director to take, and second, by the almost unlimited power conferred upon him by legal enactment. Relying upon the solemn obligation that he will faithfully and impartially perform his duties, the State proceeds to make him not only the business manager, but the prosecutor, judge and jury of the school system. Clothed with all this authority to direct the institution which is to shape human destiny and to mould human lives, it is highly im portant that the director be a man ballasted with brains," keen and accurate in his observation of educational facts, sincere in his convictions, correct in his conclusions, wise in his enactments, right in his decisions, and just in the performance of his important and manifold duties. In our examination of the director as the business and the indirect professional manager of the school system, it may be well for us to attempt to analyze him more critically and discover his ideal qualifications.

well

Ideal Qualifications of the Director.-1. He must have high ideals in education. These ideals will hold up to his admiring vision

the necessary characteristics of a good teacher, of a good school, and of good educational facilities. His ideal will not be realized. No ideal ever is. The mind may contemplate it as an ethereal vision, faultless, harmonious, symmetrical and complete. But while it may be thought out, it can never be wrought out. As a mental will-o'-the-wisp it ever flits above us, luring us onward, receding as we advance, ever escaping our grasp, and refusing to become an embodied reality. Visionary and ethereal as an ideal must be, it is nevertheless an essential requirement of a good school director. High ideals mean progression; low ideals, retrogression. The former mean vigorous effort, healthful growth, boundless achievements; the latter, feeble effort, stunted growth, arrested development, retrogression, decay, death.

2. The model director must have keen perceptive power with which to discover the defects in the schools when comparing the actual with the ideal. The first step toward the ideal strength to which we would attain is a just appreciation of the weakness we possess. And the first step towards educational progress begins in the complete discovery of the slow pace at which we are traveling. As a child can never be made to comprehend the knowledge possessed by the teacher until the teacher has first comprehended the child's ignorance, so the perfections of an ideal cannot be even approached until the imperfections in the real are discovered. The director, therefore, must have keen perception if he would note the lack of harmony between the actual and the ideal.

3. The model director must have good judgment with which to select and inaugurate the necessary remedial agencies that will help him to realize his ideals. This is the day of fads. "Small tonnage educational theorists have gotten far out from the shore on the sea of pedagogy, and having lost their compass, are guessing the way to the desired haven." Little progress will be made in reallzing high educational ideals, if the director adopts the plans of these dreamers, these visionary theorists and pedagogic fortune-tellers. Sailing, not drifting," should be the motto of the business manager of our school system. To do this, he must equip his vessel with the best machinery, follow the truest charts, and have on board a most reliable pilot, in whose head is a compass tried and true. This equipment is the result, not of hap-hazard guess work, but of a wise choice, deliberately made by good common sense and sound educational judgment.

4. The ideal school director must possess an intense personality. The conscious determination of this personality asserted through the will is what we term force of character. This must be distinguished from force without character. Will, with the content of personality, is force of character; will, without this content, is force

without character. The director should possess in a large degree this making, moulding, moving power which we term force of character. In the language of Sam Jones, "His ribs must be tied to a backbone, not to a dish cloth." This moral backbone must be flexible enough for all legitimate purposes, 'strong enough to support the courage of honest convictions, and stiff enough at all times to refuse to participate in any log-rolling processes. Such a man, knowing the value of good school facilities, of a good teacher and a long term, will, by the force of his character, the honesty of his purpose, the courage of his convictions and the intensity of his personality, convince his board and his community of their worth when compared with low taxes. A director of this stamp is greater than his environment. He is the creator, not the creature of circumstances. His real power is not in his environment, but in himself; in his character, his individuality, his attainments, his spirit, his personality. The director must have educational wisdom manifested in his high ideals, his keen perception and his good judgment. But he must have zeal and personality as well as wisdom. Wisdom strikes when the iron is hot, zeal builds the fire and heats it. Wisdom seizes the opportunity, zeal makes it. Wisdom knows, zeal does. Wisdom weighs, zeal works. Wisdom spreads the sails to catch every breeze, zeal makes both the sails and the breeze. The director must have both. He must either lead or be led by the educational sentiment of his community. And whether he is to be its master or its slave will depend very largely upon his zeal, his character, his individuality, his personality. All will agree that these qualifications are desirable and in a measure essential. And all will admit, I presume, with equal unanimity, that they are not possessed in the superlative degree by every director. And yet the director is not to be condemned. In fact, he deserves praise, not censure. Much of the progress in modern education is traced to his wisdom, his zeal, his courage, and his faithfulness. His worth, however, has been due to himself, not to others. Is it not time to help him, to apply some aids from without that will cause his growth from within? The question I wish to ask, not answer, is this: Can we do anything to help the director to secure this necessary zeal and wisdom? Certainly the age demands a more careful study of this question, even if we are as yet unable to formulate a desirable answer to it. The study of the director as a factor in education has received but little attention, and nothing practically has been done to help him. Much has been done for the child and for the teacher. To aid them, the history of education has been written, its philosophy discovered, its science explained, and the method of instruction outlined. We have Normal Schools, technical schools and in

stitutes for teachers, but we have nothing for the directors. The beneficent results which these schools seek to bring about are often rendered null and void, because directors are ignorant of, or not in sympathy with the spirit of progress they suggest.

The Necessity for Better Trained Directors. -If these qualifications are desirable, let us ask if there is any existing necessity for an attempt to help the director along these lines. Without these qualifications he is often the embodiment of educational indifference, and educational indifference is the child of educational ignorance. The director who possesses it has little interest in healthful progress. He has no educational ideals commensurate with the age, and worthy of attainment. He sees no defects and is able to suggest no remedies. His influence, therefore, is negative and hurtful, rather than positive and helpful. He is a retarder rather than a director, a hinderer rather than a helper. This is possible in our school system. The director is its business manager. He has unlimited power. His word is law. His authority over its finances is absolute, his control over its professional progress almost as complete. The same law which makes it possible for him to help, aid and direct, makes it possible for him to retard, oppose and hinder. His educational sin may be omission, commission, or both. But is there any real necessity for an attempt to educate him? We answer, yes, and cite three of the many reasons that might be given for our answer.

I. An adequate supply of trained teachers has always been a perplexing question. It will always be such until we have an adequate supply of trained directors. The law of supply and demand is inexorable. The latter always regulates the former. As long as the indifferent director will hire indifferent teachers we may expect indifferent results, and a large supply of untrained teachers. "We have scotched the snake, not killed it." To remove the effect, we must remove the cause. And the untrained director is certainly one of the causes of the untrained teachers.

2. The condition of some school properties is a monument to the indifference and carelessness of the director. Especially is this true in rural districts and small villages. The grounds are unfenced and the vagrant cattle of the neighborhood hold camp-meetings on the school lot. The gate is a postless, palingless, hingeless, latchless fabrication of the imagination. In fact there is nothing of the gate there except the place where it ought to be, and even that cannot be located without a surveyor. The doors of the out-buildings are hung without latch or hinge, as these are regarded as nonessentials in out-house architecture. For want of care and disinfectants these buildings often degenerate into dismal, dirty, dingy, disagreeable and disgraceful devil-deviseddens, with sin-scratched walls and sin-sug