OUTPOSTS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

by Watson Dicker-man '2B.AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FORADULT EDUCATION, p. j 6. #.75.

Someone has said that the true test of any instruction that we may give our students is to be found in the eagerness with which they pursue more studies of the same sort after we have finished with them.

I wonder how many of our college courses could be graded A, or even D, on this basis.

In my day in college the average undergraduate, at the end of the term, sold or gave away (or cremated) his text books "with the same sigh of relief with which the dying saint shuffles off this mortal coil, and soars to heaven." He never wanted to open one of them again.

However, a new kind of education is appearing, an education which students seek for the joy of learning and not for the prestige or the credits or the diploma that is thrown in, and Watson Dickerman '2B, gives us a vivid picture of it in his most interesting little book Outposts of thePublic School.

We read of adult America, not "fed up" with education, but eager for it, thronging the centers, from Maine to California, where opportunity is given to study Public Speaking, Correct English, Creative Writing, Current Events, Problems of Democracy, Psychology, the Modern Novel, French, Gardening, Typewriting, Photography, Contract Bridge, Metal Crafts, Art.

We read of teachers who must sell themselves and their subjects, for none of the courses are prescribed, and the instructor who is sarcastic, unsympathetic or arbitrary soon finds himself without students.

One of the keenest points made by Mr. Dickerman is that it has been very difficult to secure, for these rapidly growing evening (and afternoon) schools, teachers who are fitted to teach these enthusiastic but oftentimes timid adults, unaccustomed to academic methods. For most of the instructors have been recruited from the ranks of high school, "prep" school and college people whose main object in teaching, in too many cases, was the elimination from their classes of all save the intellectually elite, while this new school is intended to raise the level of all the community. It operates on the basis of a gymnasium class to correct physical defects of the whole group, rather than on the basis of choosing a track team, where the coach is interested only in possible point winners.

Outposts of the Public School should be read by all teachers, school boards and school principals.

Recent publications by President W. H. Cowley '24 are Intelligence Is Not Enough, reprinted from the December issue of THEJOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION, and A Studyof N. Y. A. Projects at the Ohio StateUniversity, which has been published by the National Youth Administration, Washington.

The March issue of THE READER'S DIGEST carries a condensation of an article by Harland Manchester '2l entitled ForgottenInventors. The original article appeared in the February 11th issue of THE TORONTOSTAR WEEKLY (Toronto, Ontario).

What Happened Then? 50 Years in theHistory of the Nation, the City of Pittsfield and the Pittsfield Co-operative Bank, iBBy-i()3<), written by H. Lyman Armes 'l2, has been published as an attractively illustrated brochure.

Arthur D. Holmes 'O6 and others are the authors of A Study of Breed and Seasonal Variations in the Ascorbic AcidContent of Certified Milk from Guernseysand Holsteins, reprinted from the February issue Of THE JOURNAL OF NUTRITION.

Warren A. Cook '23 is the author of a paper delivered before the National Safety Congress of Chicago entitled ModernViewpoints in Determination of Hazardous Dusts, Fumes, Gases and Vapors.

There has just been published in a limited as well as a trade edition The Collected Poems of Robert Frost '96. This volume contains all of Mr. Frost's published verse to date with a new introduction by him.

A new edition of English Governmentand Politics by Eugene Parker Chase 'l6 has just been published by Thomas Nelson and Sons.

The Thread of Scarlet by Ben Ames Williams 'lO will be reviewed in the next issue o£ the MAGAZINE.

Our World Today. Europe and EuropeOverseas by De Forrest Stull and Roy W. Hatch 'O2 has recently been published by Allyn and Bacon. Another recent publication by the same authors is Our WorldToday. Asia, Latin America, United States.

What Divides American Labor? by Professor Malcolm Keir appears in the February 1 issue of THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR.

The Dartmouth Program for Diagnostic and Remedial Reading with SpecialReference to Visual Factors by Professor Robert M. Bear, has been reprinted from the January issue of THE EDUCATIONALRECORD SUPPLEMENT. This paper was an address given in New York October 27 at the Seventh Educational Conference sponsored jointly by the Educational Records Bureau, The Cooperative Test Service, The Committee on Measurement and Guidance of the American Council on Education, and The Commission on the Relation of School and College of the Progressive Education Association.

Tomorrow in the Making, edited by John M. Andrews and Carl A. Marsden, published by McGraw Hill contains one chapter Which Way American Labor? by Professor Herman Feldman. Other recent articles by Professor Feldman are Unemployment Insurance and Its New Problems in Vocational Counseling, in the February issue of OCCUPATIONS— The Vocational Guidance Magazine, and Problemsand Implications of the National WageHour Act, published in the March issue of the same magazine.

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