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HE EDUCATIONAL STATESMAN is the who shows unusual courage person and wisdom in dealing with educational problems or directing educational affairs. The greatest educational statesman is the person who has progressed furthest in understanding and applying fundamental principles to the solution of important educational problems as contrasted with the person who merely does what is most expedient, what is easiest, or what is designed to bring him the most per sonal credit. This may constitute the sig nificant difference between the great educational leader and the little or mediocre person, regardless of title, who tries to do the most popular thing, or the thing which will add most to his own prestige.

We do not yet know too much about how statesmanship in any field is developed. We know that it is not handed out with a college degree no matter how advanced the degree, nor with a position no matter how

Volume 32, Number 1

high the salary or the prestige carried by high the salary or the prestige carried by the position. A holder of a Ph. D. degree who heads a great city or State school system may or may not have the qualities that make him a great educational leader and statesman. We always hope he has those qualities because he needs them. We believe that good training helps to develop those qualities. Yet when we take up our lantern to search out the educational statesmen in the Nation today we know that the number we discover will be far fewer than the holders of advanced degrees or of important educational positions.

In fact, it should be apparent that one of our greatest needs today in education, as in all other fields, is for more persons ranging from classroom teachers to college presidents who have the understanding, the insight, the qualities of leadership, and the unselfish courage necessary to exercise real statesmanship on all occasions. If we had more such persons, we would have far fewer

By Edgar L. Morphet

unsolved problems in education and more really good school systems and institutions of higher learning throughout the Nation.

Let us look briefly at a few of the important problems and issues being faced by education in this country and consider what educational leadership can and should do about solving these problems.

Assuring Competent Leadership

I believe the basic issue in this country, not only in education but in every other phase of public life, is whether we can and will train, select, and place responsibility on persons who have the qualities and courage to exercise the highest level of leadership. To the extent that we fail to attain that objective we are likely to fail to attain most every other objective we may consider desirable. While we have made considerable progress in education, we are still so far short of the possibilities that the task ahead of us will demand our best thinking.

TEN YEARS ago the author of this article, Edgar L. Morphet, was largely responsible for organizing the Southern States Work-Conference on Educational Problems. Since that time, while serving successively as Director of Administration and Finance of the Florida State Department of Education, Executive Secretary of the Florida Citizens Committee on Education, and Associate Research Director of the Council of State Governments' study of The Forty-eight State School Systems, he has been the Executive Secretary and Editor of publications of the Conference. During this year's Tenth Annual session of the Conference, held at Daytona Beach, Fla., in June, and attended by 150 persons representing the 14 States of the Southern Region, Dr. Morphet was presented with a silver pitcher “in appreciation of his leadership-unselfish, tireless, inspiring." Mrs. Annie Laurie McDonald of Hickory, N. C., serving as chairman of the Work-Conference committee on health education, made the presentation. Clyde A. Erwin, Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina and President of the National Council of Chief State School Officers, presided at the meeting. (See accompanying photograph.) The presentation speech was made by Andrew D. Holt, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Tennessee Education Association, the newly elected President of the National Education Association. Dr. Morphet, who has served as Chief of School Finance in the Division of School Administration, Office of Education, since January 1, left this position in September to become Professor of Education in the field of School Administration at the University of California at Berkeley.

SCHOOL LIFE is pleased to present Dr. Morphet's challenging views on the present-day need for educational statesmanship in our country as included in his address at the recent cooperative Conference for School Administrators sponsored by Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

lished to select persons for these key posi-
tions have not exercised enough statesman-
ship. In fact, in most instances, we must
find the essential qualities of statesmanship
in the members of the governing board
before we can feel much confidence about
finding them in the person selected by the
board to serve as its executive officer.

We still select nearly two-thirds of our
chief State school officers and most of our
county superintendents of schools on the
basis of popular vote. Many times able
persons are selected by this method, but all
too often the person selected may not be the
most capable leader available. The very
method of selection in many instances seems
to place a premium on qualities other than
statesmanship in education. Thus, before Planning Needed Adjustments
we can be assured of having the type of edu
cational leadership which is needed in many
States and counties, it will be necessary
for
the citizens themselves to exercise enough
statesmanship to develop a plan which will
be more likely to produce desirable results.
We cannot afford to continue a system that
tends to inject personal or partisan politics
into education either at the local or at the
State level.

But we must not blame the system of popular election alone for our failure to have an educational statesman in every important position. When we look at some of our college presidents and superintendents of schools who have been appointed by boards selected to represent the people, we know that we have fallen short somewhere. I suspect we have fallen short, in the first place, because the general public has not clearly recognized what constitutes. educational statesmanship in strategic positions and, in the second place, because some of the boards which have been estab

A second basic issue arises out of one of our characteristics as human beings. We are constantly seeking to routinize things; to get things settled so we can continue to react according to an established pattern. But unfortunately we tend to try to settle many things before the evidence is all in. For example, we once concluded that warding off evil spirits was the way to avoid illness, so for many years we centered attention on trying to ward off evil spirits instead of on what causes illness.

The basic issue is really: How can we keep the pattern of education from becom ing static before we know what is best? Or to put it another way: How can we develop a program which will be constantly adapted to meet the needs of a changing civilization?

We develop highways and high speed motor cars and, as far as most school programs are concerned, assume that when a person is old enough he will know how to drive a car and keep it in safe operating

condition. Then we read the accident statistics and talk about reckless youth!

We develop a highly industrialized society and 9-months school term with no opportunity even during the summer months for real work-experience for a large proportion of the youth, then talk in shocked tones about wayward youth and juvenile delinquency!

We set up schools as educational institutions, then assume that they should do a perfect job in almost complete isolation from the homes, in spite of the fact that a child learns constantly and that he spends less than one-eighth as many hours at school as outside school during a school year. Yes, we even get so interested in subject matter that we tend to forget that the other things a child learns may be far more sig nificant for him and for the civilization in which he lives than what he learns or fails to learn about any subject.

To solve problems such as these-to prevent the concepts of education from becoming stereotyped before the evidence is all in- -we must have educational statesmanship of the highest order.

Cooperation Rather Than
Isolationism

A third basic issue involves the problem of what we might call isolationism in education. It has been only a few years since we tried to follow the illusion of national isolationism. The results were all but disastrous for us and for the world.

Yet, look at our situation in education today. Doesn't the evidence indicate that we seem unconsciously to be rather generally following the same false premise? I am afraid the answer must be "Yes," but fortunately there are many communities to which that simple answer does not apply. Let us consider the following aspects of the prob lem:

(1) The Lay Public. In many communities the schools have been run pretty largely by the school people, with sort of a "public-be-damned attitude," until greater support is needed or serious problems arise. Sometimes the superintendent has even considered the board a sort of necessary nuisance and sometimes the board has joined with the superintendent and his staff in considering the general public in that category. During recent years we have been brought to realize that the schools should be as much a concern of the lay public as of the educa(Continued on page 12)

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DUCATORS frequently are accused of being able to present facts on education to educators but not always to citizens generally.

Today some of the Nation's top-flight specialists in the fields of radio, advertising, publishing, and business are lending their time and talents to help educators inform laymen like themselves of problems facing our schools now and in the years immediately ahead.

When you hear George Hicks, Kate Smith, Arthur Godfrey, or any other radio star take time out to talk about the millions of children who will be crowding into our schools during the next few years and the need for more elementary teachers and better schools, credit the announcements to much cooperative planning. They grow

out of months of planning and work by the Advertising Council, the Citizens Federal Committee on Education, the Office of Education, and the National Citizens Commission for the Public Schools.

A recent week's schedule of public-service messages on radio programs arranged by the Advertising Council revealed that "Better Schools" messages were announced on 80 radio programs broadcast over the ABC, CBS, NBC, and MBS networks. In addition, during the same week, 35 national advertisers were asked to carry a "Better Schools" message on their programs broadcast over 670 stations.

Blackboard type announcements will appear on outdoor posters across the Nation this fall. As you drive along the highways you will see many times the words:

Members of the Citizens Federal Committee on Education discuss school and college building needs this year. Presiding at the meeting in the Office of Education, Federal Security Agency, is Dr. Kathryn McHale, American Association of University Women, Chairman of the Committee. Standing is Ralph L. Goetzenberger, Engineer's Council for Professional Development, Committee Secretary.

Our Schools Are What We Make Them Good Citizens Everywhere Are Helping! As you read the words you will be seeing evidence of another phase of the same "Better Schools" campaign, one which gives a sort of pat on the back to citizens for what they already have done to help improve school conditions, and challenges the great Nation-wide audience of the outdoor advertising industry to keep up the good work.

During the coming months you will see in popular magazines and trade journals and in your newspapers advertising copy that has been prepared by some of the leading advertising copy men in the business. The advertising firms which employ them provide the service gratis as a public service so that accurate figures and facts on our Nation's growing school problems may be presented to citizen readers in a professional way to get the best results. Pattern advertisements are selected by business firms which pay millions of dollars to bring "Better Schools" information to the public.

Such catch lines as "You Wouldn't Let This Happen to Your Child-Or Would You?" "How Wide Will Your Child's World Be?" "What the Stork Could Tell the Schoolboard" and "The Boom That Can Become a Boomerang" are only suggestive of many others which may attract your attention this year and will identify advertising copy of the highest type, planned, prepared, checked and double-checked, and presented by business firms to citizens through every possible media of communication, in behalf of better schools.

It would be impossible to mention all of the national, State, and local organizations working for the improvement of education endeavoring to keep citizens informed of the status quo and what is on the horizon. (Continued on page 14)

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Help Wanted-Teachers

Our Schools Need 160,000 New Teachers in 1949 and Over 100,000 Every Year for the Next 10 Years

by Edwin H. Miner

(This article was written by Mr. Miner when he was Associate Commissioner of Education. He was recently named Director of the Armed Forces Education Program. See page 13, column 3.)

Try checking your students against this list of questions.

YES answers would be indicators as to whether they have the stuff out of which good teachers are made:

1. Do you like people generally and especially those whom you can help?

2. Are you interested in children and their development?

3. Do you like to explore new ideas and are you intellectually curious?

4. Are you interested in what is happening in your town, your State and country, and in the world today?

5. Do you have faith in democracy as a form of government and a way of life?

6. Would you strive to inspire others with an understanding of their individual and group responsibilities to improve and perfect our practice of democracy?

7. Do you like to work on tough projects in which you can really dig into interesting and challenging problems?

8. Are you alert physically as well as mentally?

9. Are you emotionally stable?

10. Do you like to have others think well of you and what you do?

YOU may find this article useful in encouraging some of your most outstanding high

about to accept a four-leaf clover from her

school students NOT to shut their opportunity delighted son. "It was nice of you to bring

Home

door on the "Career of the decade.' room teachers and guidance counselors will find many questions about teaching answered in the article. Reprints are available for class use from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D. C. ALL teachers must help in the campaign_to_recruit new teachers if our country's schools are to be staffed for our millions of new students. One of the best ways teachers can do this is to be so proud of their job and so successful in their working together with boys and girls and other teachers that their students will want to follow in their footsteps and become teachers!

HE second-grade teacher was waiting for the hubbub of a winter morning struggle with galoshes and snowsuits to wear itself out. One by one rosy cheeked youngsters slipped out of their wooly cocoons and tumbled happily into their seats. And then she saw Jimmy bumping his way down the aisle. A trip forward was always a major mission for Jimmy with his shambling gait. This morning a new pair of heavy shoes added to his obstacle course. Clutched firmly in one hand and safe from possible collision, he held a page from a magazine.

"Miss Wilson," he exclaimed with happy pride in his eyes, "I saw your picture in the Sunday paper yesterday. I cut it out for you."

"Thank you, Jimmy," she replied, looking quickly at an attractive young mother

it to me." He smiled up into her friendly face. She patted his head tenderly as he turned to work his way back to his seat.

It was obviously not a photograph of Miss Wilson, for she was 64 years old and stout, with thinning gray hair which defied both a wave and a semblance of ordered arrangement. I wondered how Jimmy had confused the two until I noticed that the warm smile of loving affection was common to them both. And then it struck me with majestic force that her kindly acceptance of the picture without any attempt to correct Jimmy's mistaken powers of observation was even further proof of this teacher's marvelous understanding of children... because Jimmy's observations weren't so faulty after all. He, a second grader, had already learned that love and affection show in a person's smile, face, and words—not in one's age or body appear

ance.

Most of us, I believe, remember with warm and grateful feelings those teachers, regardless of age or appearance, who treated us like individuals of promise.

Fun But Not Easy

It's a thrill to be a teacher and have your students like and respect you. It's fun to watch children grow. It's the most satisfy ing job in the world. Yes, teaching is all

of this PLUS. But it is also trying and discouraging and exhausting. Even good teachers are sorely taxed at times to get things proceeding smoothly and all hands. pulling together. A few teachers never quite make the grade. They are the ones pupils forget. Their example tends to discourage others from considering teaching

as a career.

We teachers know that we are catalogued by our students. We know some of the listings students give us not all of them are complimentary. The analyses are generally fair. When a class as a whole takes a dim view of a teacher, I am inclined to be lieve the teacher has earned that low opinion. If only we could get youth to use those sad experiences as a challenge to get into teaching themselves and do a better job!

Good teaching is a joy, both to teachers and students. Teaching's greatest allure is the satisfaction that comes from helping others learn and grow. "But," you say, "that serving-other-people angle is why Tom wants to be a doctor and why my cousin is studying law.”

You're right as far as you go. You could have added all the professions and countless other jobs in which people practice the basic principles of right living while they work. But the whole purpose of teaching is to help others learn. And that in itself is cause enough for young women-and men-to choose teaching for a life work and to be proud of their choice. Remember, there'd be no lawyers without teachers. Nor doctors, nor engineers.

I frequently think folks are apt to build. up ideas about the way teachers, and nurses, and ministers, and other groups of people should look. I wish it were as easy as that, because we could say to young people, "Go to your mirror. Study yourself carefully. If you look the part, then you can become a teacher." To be sure, physical appearance is as important in teaching as in many other jobs. But I don't agree with the superintendent of schools who used to say that when he had narrowed his selection down to three equally well qualified candidates, he would hire the man with the largest nose. I don't think good teachers are so typed that you can pick them out of a crowd by appearance alone.

If only we could have a student interested in teaching, push a button, and direct a special X-ray into his mirror so that he might see what teachers are really like

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