Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-30
WELCOME THE TEACHERS

AHO COlHllB Ol lHe INdIlOndl EQucd
tional association to Los Angeles is al
event of peculiar significance, and i
should not be allowed to pass withou
Los Angeles feeling it's import and TAX
ing advantage of it's Offering.
The N. e. A. is an organization made
up largely of teachers-of those who ir
the school room imbue the youthful
mind with knowledge. The impression.
able intellects which they train are
quick to retain impressions and prone
to remember them long after they for
get things learned in later life. From
their teachers they get far more knowl-
edge than from any one other source
Many of these teachers will come to
this great city for the first time this
summer. They have heard of it and
have taught of it, using the ordinary
school geography as a textbook. Thus
they have only a concept of city as
seen by the authors as it stood some
years ago. The average school geog-
raphy, in the nature of things, is at
least a couple of seasons behind the
actualities, and the Los Angeles of
their defining is the city of 1923.
Great as that city was, it merely fore
shadowed the city of today, which is
doubly larger than it was at that
period.
If 1t be true-and none disputes it
that a geography must necessarily be
written in the past tense, then it is
highly important that the exponent of
that geography. especially in the case
of a city so very rapid in it's growth
as is Los Angeles, be thoroughly able
to extend the limitations of the book,
to carry forward it's deficient statis-
the childish mind the proper impress
of its present status and it's future
This is easy in the case of older places,
because they grow in a sort of orderly
and staid fashion. at a regular per-
centage of increase a year, and calcu-
lations may readily be made.
But Los Angeles is a problem apart.
1t has trebled its growth in five years
and though still quoted in the census
tables as a city of 100000 population
now easily has thrice that many. How
shall the ordinary rules apply to a
multiplicity that simply runs away
from everything in that style? They
cannot; a new basis of calculations
must be found; new ideas must be OBJ
tanned; new concepts and new impress
sions.
The teachers met here something like
a decade back; many of the same per-
sons will return again for the first
time. They will be able to note the
tremendous strides during that time;
they may help out the conservative
of the others to an ex-
tent. Others who come here frequently
can do still more. But none of them
is able fully to destroy the limited
ideas possessed by the vast majority
of teachers concerning this city or dis
pei the feeling that its growth of late
years has been largely a matter of
boom.
What should be done is to insure that
every teacher coming her sees and
knows for him or herself just what this
city now is. Take them in trolleys and
autos over its miles on miles of streets,
through it's parks, to it's environs and
among its homes. Let them see not
only the show places but the acres and
acres of bungalows, where thousands
of families live in a luxury not dreamed
of in the crowded east. Let them be-
hold the wealth of flowers and palms
and bowers and trees and get acquaint-
ed with orange and lemon and nut and
small fruit groves. Impress upon them
he way things are done here; how we
ouild by the twenty-five miles a year; !
now we extend car lines over night;
low we run up sky scrapers and how
are multiplying. Give them
literature and statistics and views and
pictures till they can't rest, and show
hem at first hands the things these
feel and understand the spirit of Los
Angeles and Of the Southern California
If which it is the center.
Fix all this firmly in their inner con-
and send them back home
so thoroughly imbued with the reality
that hereafter the fictional Los An
geles of census and geography will be
as much of joke as it is to the resi-
dent of the real Los Angeles, which
must be seen to be known. Then, in
deed, will the visit of the National Ed
lcational association have been worth
while, not only to themselves and to
their pupils, but to Los Angeles as
we'll.