TEACHER RECRUITING

The following letter from the Teacher-Training League of Columbia Teachers College is timely for Nevada teachers-high-school teachers and principals particularly, but for all teachers. Nevada teachers should work for increased salary provisions to make teaching a justifiable occupation economically, and to present the needs and possibilities of service in teaching under the conditions that are now gradually becoming more attractive financially. Young people of strength and ideals should be won to this work as a patriotic service. Along with such recruiting service must go unceasing effort to secure homelike living conditions for teachers, especially in the rural sections and small communities. Many of these small schools afford very happy living conditions for teachers. Those that do not must be helped onward in this essential requirement:

This is neither a questionnaire nor Master's essay, but an urgent appeal for the cooperation of all educators in increasing the number and quality of students entering our teachertraining institutions.

Unless we get more and better-trained teachers even the raise of salaries already obtained is likely to be considered too liberal.

At present there are only half as many teachers in training as in 1916. Then one teacher in five was trained. With the present attendance, the ratio will soon become as 1 to 10. Careful estimates show that about three times as many resignations occurred in 1919 as in 1915.

The Field Secretary of the National Education Association reported after careful investigation that in September, 1919, there were 100,000 schoolrooms vacant or filled by teachers admittedly below prewar standards.

We must see that standards are not lowered. We must induce enough students to enter training to fill the positions, and thus protect the children and our profession at the same time.

The indications are that the people of the country are realizing that teachers must be paid adequate salaries. With this. encouragement, we can consistently present the brighter side of the profession to our high-school students, for it is from them we must get students for our teacher-training institutions.

To this end we suggest the following:

1. That you and your teachers discuss from a vocational view-point the advantages and opportunities of real social service in the profession.

2. That you keep in sympathetic touch with your state training schools and advertise them by discussion, slides, and posters.

3. That the English teachers have pupils discuss and write on the problems of public-school education, including the need of a supply of well-trained teachers for all schools. An abundance of literature may be secured without charge or at a small cost from the United States Bureau of Education, from state education departments, and from the Secretary of the National Education Association, 1400 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D. C.

The members of the Teacher-Training League will be glad to cooperate with you and your teachers in promoting this work.

Respectfully, C. F. DAUGHERTY,

Chairman Committee, Columbia University, New York City.

EDUCATIONAL BULLETIN

PUBLISHED MONTHLY EXCEPT JULY AND AUGUST BY

THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

CARSON CITY, NEVADA

Entered as second-class matter May 22, 1919, at the postoffice at Carson City, Nevada, under the Act of August 24, 1912. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized August 21, 1919.

Many questions as to methods of teaching, as to subjects requiring especial stress, and as to plans of supervision are being earnestly debated in teaching circles these days. General plans for reconstructing our school program, for securing economic and professional justice for teachers are going forward slowly or rapidly, as the case may be. But, in the midst of all this tumult of discussion, there must be one clear goal for every educational worker. The teaching spirit must be cherished, the spirit of service to childhood, of faith in the abounding possibilities of boys and girls, and a sincere pledge of personal consecration to the sacred task given into the teacher's hands.

Such attention to the spirit of real teaching does not mean that the teacher shall disregard the question of salaries and sound plans for school finance, nor that teachers shall leave to others the debatable questions of subject-matter and methods.

Strenuous days lie ahead in the forum of professional discussion. Lest we forget the children in the stress and struggle of educational debate, we must keep our hearts and minds tuned to catch the message of the little child. Then will come the best possible solution to per

plexing questions, and the cause of education will be found not academic but vital and human. We fight in these professional battles, not for ourselves but for the childhood of our State and Nation. Justice to the teacher is essential to the welfare of the children, but impatience or disappointment over slowness of progress must not be permitted to rob children of real teachers who serve.

NEW TEXT-BOOK LIST

In June, 1920, text-book adoptions were made in United States history, while the present series of geographies was continued for another year. The situation as to the latter is still unsettled; maps and material are not completely ready, nor is the report on the 1920 census complete enough to give needed data for revision. Gray, Reid, Wright Company have the eight-page pamphlet issued by the Macmillan Company, which supplements the present series of geographies sufficiently to bridge over the current school year.

The new histories are to be used in the fourth and fifth grades, and in the seventh and eighth. In the sixth grade the Mace and Tanner text was retained.

A few additional supplementary and library books are given in the new list. The main list is given in the 1919 pamphlet.

NEVADA THRIFT RECORD

The following letter indicates the need for a more general and hearty response on the part of the schools of the State to the needs of Thrift instruction.

Nevada had, at the close of June, 1920, a per-capita investment of 48 cents. Even this small amount gave our State second place in the Twelfth Federal Reserve District, and seventh place among the fortyeight States. While we have done better than many others, yet so far we have scarcely exerted ourselves since the war drives have closed. Our neighbor, Oregon, is again leading in the Twelfth District with 62 cents per capita.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT

TWELFTH FEDERAL RESERVE DISTRICT
GOVERNMENT SAVINGS ORGANIZATION

SAN FRANCISCO, August 26, 1920.

W. J. HUNTING, Director of Thrift Education for Nevada,
Carson City, Nevada.

MY DEAR MR. HUNTING: The enclosed report of net sales
of War Savings securities for June and for the year 1920, up
to June 30, indicates the apathy that is being manifested in
connection with the Government's Savings activities.

While the States of the Twelfth Federal Reserve District are showing up worse than most of the other States, the sales in this district are as unsatisfactory to us as we trust they are to you.

Now that the vacation period is practically over, there should be a marked improvement in sales, and we are looking

to you for your cooperation in bringing the sales back to a
mark that will justify a continuation of this important gov-
ernment work of inculeating the idea of thrift, of saving, and
of sane spending in the minds of the American people.

The work is to be organized as soon as the additional supplies from the federal organization have been received. The teaching of Thrift should make more impression this year than at any time since the war. Signs are multiplying to show that the people are recovering somewhat from the reaction that followed the severe efforts of the war period. Now is the time to teach children, and, more important than teaching, to lead children to form habits in the practice of sound. saving and investment.

TEACHER SHORTAGE IN 1920

School boards, principals, and superintendents have been forced to put forth every effort to secure a full quota of teachers in the town schools, and in a few cases a vacancy still exists, or has been filled at the last moment with less experienced material than has usually been the case.

For the rural schools, Boards of School Trustees, Deputy Superintendents, and the State Department of Education have worked together early and late to secure teachers qualified to give standard instruction. Some rural schools waited too long before informing the Deputy that they desired assistance. Many of these schools are still without a teacher. Teachers from other States who have had successful teaching experience, but who have not had sufficiently broad training to secure regular certification on credentials, have been granted temporary certification, good until the December examinations when these teachers can clear up any shortages by the examination route. A few Nevada high-school graduates, well recommended by their principals, have been placed in remote schools where they know conditions and where, with a small school, they give promise of being able to do good service. Applicants of less than full high-school training have had to be refused recognition.

It will be late in the fall before all schools are supplied. In the past two or three weeks, probably a hundred applicants from outside Nevada have written in for positions; many of these are advanced in years or totally without training; many are well prepared, but seek either town-school positions or expect salaries entirely beyond the financial ability of Nevada rural schools. A few are suitably prepared and are obtainable for our remaining vacancies.

There may be Nevada teachers not yet placed. If there be such, they owe it to themselves and to the vacant schools to get into touch with one of the Deputy Superintendents, or the State Department.

We want to place all suitably prepared Nevada teachers first. Such have become acquainted with conditions and have already fitted themselves to give service adapted to community needs.