The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-11
A CONVENTION
Of EDUCATORS
Fifty Thousand Teachers viii
Talk 1t Over at
Cleveland. .
advertiser Correspondence, Copyright
by Frederic J. Haskin.)

Cleveland today. Greater interest may
be excited by the national conventions
of the two political parties, but the
real significance of the annual meeting
of the National Education Association
is not measured by the newspaper space
devoted to it. School teachers to the
number of 10000 from every part of
the Union will gather in the Ohio
metropolis to discuss ways and means
of improving the mental, moral and
physical condition of the eighteen mil,
| lion public school children of the United
States.
Some good old-fashioned folk are in
clined to look askance upon the new
| tangled and hifalutin methods of the
modern school, but they will be pleased
with the browning feature of this par
ticular gathering of the advanced peda-
gogs. For Cleveland is to have the
biggest old-fashioned spelling bee ever
pulled off in the history of Webster IS
blue backed spelling book. Selected
teams of fifteen pupils, representing the
common school grades from first to
eighth, will come from a dozen of the
principal cities of the country They
will line up after the manner of their
grandparents and they will spell against
each other and against the perversity
of the English dictionary until but one
remains,-the master of syllables and
the pride of some city.
From "ba-ker'' and "a-er-lal" to
the labyrinthian mazes of those jaw
breakers in the back Of the book, teach
ers of the National Education Asso-
citation will follow their favorites
| through the most exciting contest of the
school year. 1t will be a noole battle,
and if some little girl from Boston shall
win, it is not impossible that she may
whisper to the lad from Atlanta, last of
| the vanquished:
81 IN sorry that I spelt the word,
! / hate to go above you,
Because (the brown eyes lower feli,)
- Because, you see, I love you.
Such things will be the fun of the
n E. A. conventions; it's business is
more serious and more important. The
most remarkable educational develop
ment in the history of the human race
is that of the growth of the public
school system of the United States in
the past seventy years. For sixty-one
| of these years this national organiza,
ton, which will hold it's forty sixth
meeting at Cleveland, has been at the
head and front of the educational adj
vance. 1t was organized in 1857 at
Philadelphia under the name National
Teachers Association. In 1871 the
name was chnged to "'National Edu-
cational Association In 1906, when
reincorporated by Congress, the name
was again changed to s. National Edu-
cation Association. Meetings have
been held annually ever since the Civil
| War, with the exception of 1867, 1878,
| 1898 and 1906. The meeting of 1893
was merged into the World S Congress
at Chicago, and that of 1906 was not
| held on account of the San Francisco
earthquake, the convention having been
called to meet in that stricken city.
| The membership of the n. E. A., (the
organization is usually designated SIM
| ply by its initial Letters, includes
school teachers, schools, school boards
and representatives of every class which
| has to do with the actual work of man
aging the great educational system Of
the country. The association includes
the National Education Council and
seventeen departments. These sub
divisions are at work all the time, and
their reports to the annual meeting are
of great value. Everything that is said
and done is preserved in permanent
form The proceedings of the ~ E. A.
for the past sixty years form a com
plete history of the growth of educa-
| tion in the United States.
When the organization was first
launched there were only sixty-nine
public high schools in the country. The
privately conducted academy was still
the main dependence for secondary edu-
cation. Boys, and sometimes girls, were
given the advantage of the study OF
Latin and Greek, little history, lit
! tie mathematics and little English.
| The physical and vocational training of
the modern high school was not dream
ed of, the very idea that education was
la good thing for practical purposes was
frowned upon.
The old order has passed away, but
the new order is not established 1T
must make way for the improvements of
progress. The teachers of the country
are not conservatives; they believe in
doing things the new way, if the new
way is better. 1t is through the infiu-
ence of the \. F. A. that the discovery
| of new and better methods in one sec
ton of the country is made the common
heritage of the whole country. Not one
of the thousands of teachers who at,
tend this year will leave Cleveland
without new IDEAS to put in practice
back home, despite precedent and de-
spite conservative school boards
The most remarkable features of the
progress of the public school systems
of the states are the extension of the
rural high school territory; the increas-
ing attention being given to the phys
zeal training of the children; and the
increasing emphasis on vocational edu-
cation. In the large cities the high
schools turn out boys and girls thor
oughly equipped for business or home.