the Acts of 1919, page 839, should govern in the distribution of the State aid school fund for the school year of 19191920. (b) That Section 1 of the school transfer law, found on page 66 of the Acts of 1919, applies to elementary school pupils only that the term "school district," as used in the law, applies to elementary school districts, and that a township trustee does not have the right, in his discretion, to transport or pay for the transportation of high school pupils. 3. The Department of Public Instruction wishes to advise that a salary of $7.00 per day for superintendents of town schools and principals of township schools, and a salary of $5.50 per day for principals of town schools and one assistant principal in each township high school, and a salary of $5.00 per day for all other high school teachers employed to teach high school subjects only, will be approved until further notice where school corporations find it necessary to apply for State aid. A salary of $5.00 per day will be approved where a regular high school teacher is required to teach special subjects in the grades, such as agriculture, manual training, domestic science, music and art. Will you not please advise school officials in your county of these important rulings? Yours very truly, L. N. HINES, State Supt. Pub. Instruction. August 18, 1919. To County and City Superintendents: Mr. Charles Kettleborough, Director of the Bureau of Legislative Information, State House, is sending to the commissioned high schools and to the county superintendents for distribution to smaller high schools, a supply of the 1918 Indiana Year Books. These books are being forwarded for use in the civics classes, in the seventh and eighth grades, and in the high schools. It is the desire of the State Board of Education that these books shall be used freely in the civics work. Much valuable material concerning our State has been collected in this splendid volume, and the Indiana schools ought to make the fullest use possible of this work. If you can use additional copies, please send your request to Mr. Kettleborough. Yours very truly, L. N. HINES, Better American Speech Week At the annual business meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, held in Chicago, on February 26, last, the proposal of the American Speech Committee to conduct a "Better American Speech Week" throughout the nation during the first week of November, 1919, was unanimously approved by the Board of Directors. As a result of this action and the propa ganda that has been launched by the Speech Committee, the week will be observed by many high schools throughout the country, if it has not been observed earlier. We are devoting our department this month to this live and important movement for the benefit of teachers of English who want to make plans, and we give such information and suggestions as seem likely to prove helpful. At the same time we make good the promise made in the June issue that we would devote one number to this topic. A Bit of History The idea of setting apart a week for a special "drive" in the interests of "good English" is by no means new. The first "Speech Week" was observed by the Eastern District High School, Brooklyn, New York, in September, 1915. Almost that long ago, perhaps longer, one of our Indiana high schools took up the plan and has carried it out consistently each year and added new features to the observance. We refer to the Emmerich Manual Training High School of Indianapolis. Follow ing the example of Manual, Technical held such a week this last year. Perhaps the only thing that is new about the project is the name, and it is significant. Although the Speech Committee of the National Council was organized in 1915, and has been doing faithful work ever since, it was not until near the close of the war that the patriotic side of its work became apparent. There were two reasons for this one-the elimination of the German language from the public schools; two-the victories of America in the World War and the new importance of the English language. And thus it is that "American Speech Week," or "Better American Speech Week," was inspired by a patriotic desire to kindle a new interest in the improvement of the use of the mother tongue all over the country, so that under one flag, we may speak one language, and that the English language-the language of the "Declaration of Independence" and those immortal words of Lincoln. Can We Improve American Speech? The large foreign population that speaks "indifferent English" and the peculiarities of various sections, amounting almost to dialects, have all but answered "No" to the question, "Can We Improve American Speech?" In the past, our best scholars and teachers have not been very hopeful, but now-perhaps it is the result of the war -men like Dr. Brander Matthews and Dr. Fred N. Scott, of Columbia and Michigan, respectively, ex-President Eliot of Harvard, and Henry James state positively that there is much that may be done in the cultivation of American speech. As chacacteristic of the attitude of these men, we quote from Dr. Matthews's article, "Is the English Language Decadent?" Yale Review, VII, 545: and incessant, by word of mouth, and "By an appeal to the public, direct printed page, the members of the Academy can insist on the value of our linguistic inheritance, on our possession of a language incomparably simple in its grammar and incomparably comprehensive in its vocabulary. They can remind us Americans, descended by stocks and united with the British by law and literature and language, of the preciousness of our English speech, the mother-tongue of two mighty nations, inherited by us from our grandfathers and by us to be handed down to our grandchildren unimpaired in vigor and variety, in freshness and in nobility." The Purpose of "Better American Speech Week" While much literature has appeared on the subject, we have found no better expression of the purpose of "Better American Speech Week" than that suggested under hints for "Speeches," contained in a leaflet published by the American Speech Committee of the Chicago Woman's Club and used in connection with the campaign conducted by the committee in Chicago during the week of October 27 to November 2. Borrowing our expression from this source we would say that the purpose of the week is to "arouse respect for our language and a desire to improve it." In considering the value of the expression, "our language," we quote from the same source, suggested topics for three types of inspirational address: "our language as a symbol of national unity; our language in its relation to our foreign neighbors; our language as an efficient instrument of communication." If the purpose of the movement is to arouse respect and a desire for improvement, it is quite evident that too much must not be expected, especially from the first year's observance. The essential thing is to launch the movement, to arouse enthusiastic interest; the improvement will come out of the "follow up" work that must extend over a period of years and will need the additional stimulus of more and more "weeks." Hence, there is little ground for the scoffers to stand on when they cry out that you cannot make much impression on "bad English" that represents the accumulation of years in the brief, though fierce, attack of a week of five school days. To the outsider and critic, the things that are done in observation of the week, may seem ridiculous, while to the boys and girls in school, they may bring the very appeal that is needed. What May be Done While local conditions will determine the program for the week to some extent and each school may have original ideas, so many things have been done, and are being done, that we give the following list by way of suggestion: Addresses on "Better Speech" by prominent local men. Plays about language-several are available. Songs-new words to old tunes. Surveys of speech conditions in neighborhood. Posters and slogans-in school rooms and windows of stores. Badges, buttons, tags. Debates, spelling and pronunciation matches. Distribution of a circular containing common errors in English, with corrections. Prize contests in oral reading and composition. Daily class-room drill on troublesome points. Sources of Information and Material Chicago Woman's Club, 410 So. Michigan Ave.; Bibliography of books and articles, list of slogans, suggestions for speakers, list of plays, etc. To illustrate. The English teachers of the East High School of Minneapolis made a tabulation of the "Number of Cases of Errors Made During English Week." The report arranges the errors in the order of their frequency, from the highest to the lowest. To indicate the nature of the report, we print a little less than one-half of it, which shows the most frequent errors: Lack of agreement (subject-verb), 367; slang, 189; indef. it, they, 120; faulty reference, 115; use of you, 110; he don't, it don't 103; can for may 93; kind of a, 90; double subject, 87; ain't, 87; adjective for adverb, 72; haven't no, 57; try and, 53; this here-that there, 52; got, have got, 51. Indiana English teachers are invited to send brief reports of results and methods of observing "Better American Speech Week" to the editor of this department. A similar invitation has been issued by the Committee on Speech of the American Council as follows: An Announcement Teachers Interested in Speech Improvement: Will you not help us see to it that the subject of the national. observance of American Speech Week, November 2-8, 1919, is presented to every teachers' institute during the summer and fall months? Will you not have reports of observances sent to us, and have posters contributed to our national exhibit? Will you keep our poster exhibit, which is in the hands of Miss Edith Erskine, Public Library, Chicago, traveling steadily (expenses of transportation, which are light, to be paid by the school in each case)? Will you not let us know if you are interested in having lecturers upon matters pertaining to speech? Clarence Stratton, Central High School, St. Louis, Mo., Chairman of Committee on Speech; Claudia E. Crumpton, Northwestern High School, Detroit, Mich., Secretary. A Word of Caution While much good will undoubtedly be accomplished by creating in the boys and girls in the schools a desire to improve their speech, we, as teachers, will do well to be on our guard for possible bad results. First of all, we must guard against the possibility of developing a tendency to be over-critical of the speech of others. It would certainly be deplorable, if the child should mistake the purpose to be to discount anyone whose speech is faulty, regardless of all other good qualities or to accept mere fluency of expression in lieu of depth of thought. Even more deplorable would be the development in the child of an unsympathetic attitude. toward those whose speech is imperfect because of some natural defect in voice, enunciation, etc. Scarcely less deplorable would be the destruction in the child of the ability to appreciate those imperfections of speech that have made such a rich contribution to the humor of American literature. But of these possible bad results, it is not necessary to speak further, if the teacher will take pains to prepare herself before starting and use a fair amount of judgment after she has begun. INDIANA TEACHERS' What is Education?-Moore To Review by Supt. W. Francis Collins, Hagerstown, Indiana. benefit comes, not from what is acquired, The second point to the theories advanced by advocates of this doctrine is that of the transfer of the power developed, that is, that we develop powers. and habits and then we are able to apply these in various directions in life and in so doing lose very little, if any, of the effectiveness of our studies. This means to say that, if we reason well in Such a doctrine of general discipline of the mind is a costly doctrine. It is clear that such conclusions have their bases in false psychology, at least to a great extent. Such a theory holds that the purpose of education is not to prepare for a vocation or profession, but to train the intellectual faculties. This "grindstone theory," as Atkinson calls it, would cause many subjects to be carried too far for their greatest efficiency in a general course and the "excessive tediousnes and painful drudgery" so begotten would drive a class into calculation too minute or vex them with "manifold problems." The mind is not a reservoir of force or energy. It is not of a homogeneous nature, such that improving it for functioning in one line would improve it for functioning in all lines. Even the amateur student in psychology knows that the localiaztion of function in the brain precludes such unity of the mind. The doctrine of general discipline is based on the old faculty psychology. Modern psychology does not recognize such faculties. The old psychology upon which is based the doctrine holds that memory, reason, feeling, observation, attention, etc., are entities that may be used, developed or impaired in themselves as units of the mind-that is to say that the mind is like a great machine, that is, made up of many parts, each to a limited extent, a unit in itself, yet not existing completely isolated from one another, but each permitting development independently of one another. According to this theory, algebra and geometry develop reasoning, Latin and Greek improve memory, literature develops the emotions, and the sciences develop the powers of observation. It may be mentioned in connection with this phase of the discussion, that actual investigation shows that very many of the teachers in Indiana high schools are, many of them unconsciously, teaching algebra and Latin, not with the purpose that the child may acquire knowledge which may be applied in any manner toward furthering the great purpose of education, namely, social efficiency-but that they are teaching these subjects in keeping with the centuries old doctrine of general or formal discipline of the mind. It seems to me that Mr. Moore, in the text on page sixty-five (q. v.), touches the vital point when he says, concerning the harm that the doctrine works, that "the tragic aspect of the doctrine of formal (general) discipline is that it is handed down by the colleges to the lower schools, and infects pretty completely all forms of education.' Thousands of teachers meet their classes day after day, and unconsciously apply the "rubber stamp" of this doctrine and close their schools, day after day, believing themselves to be teach ers. This application of the general discipline theory is begun in the grades and is continued throughout the high school course, enveloping, one by one, the studies in the "net," and as the author states, little by little, transforms them into apathy-breeding, mind-destroying treadmills. It is the duty of the teacher to cease this "oriental" walking in the trodden paths, and to put life, real life, in all its fulness, into his or her work in teaching these subjects that are so accustomed to receive the "formal discipline" treatment. The harm wrought by the fallacious doctrine can be counteracted in no better way. Latin can be made an interesting subject, if it be taught as applied Latin, and algebra as applied mathematics has no rival for |