Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-05-09

At a meeting of the Pennsylva-
MIA Educational League held last
week, DIR. Samuel Z. Shope of clio
North Third street. this city, was
elected president.
This new organization is composed
not of teachers and school authorities
but of busy men engaged in CONNER
cial and professional pursuits.
The objects of the PENNSYLVANIA
Educational League are:
To endeavor to arouse business
and professional men to a proper
interest and cooperation in our
public schools and institutions of
higher education in Pennsylvania.
To persistently contend for ade-
Quate fun pay for teachers twelve
months in the year and to aid in
every movement tending to insure
men and women engaged in educa-
uonal work compensation commen-
surate with the splendid service
they render to society.
To establish q Students Loan
Fund FOR the purpose of aiding
PENNSYLVANIA high school graduates
who evince eagerneSs to study and
prove by their mental reCeptiVeneSS
To be deserving of collegiate edu-
cation.
To work assiduously for every
bit of proposed legislation, state
and national. designed to elevate
the standard and increase the
efficiency of American Educational
Institutions.
BY this it will appear that the new
organization does not eucroach upon
the field of the State Teachers ASso-
citation nor that OF any other asso-
citation of educators but to bring busi-
nesSmen in harmony and co-opera-
ton with these.
Outgrowth of Rotary Club
The league is really an outgrowth
of educational activity in the Rotary
Club. Last year in an address before
the Harrisburg Rotary Club, DR..
Shope plead with businessmen to take
more interest in matters educational
He said, The Harrisburg Rotary Club
is interested in all things educational
but are you individual members inter-
ested in the advancement of the edu-
cational interests of this city and COM
munity as you should be? For
some years you have been paying
taxes TO be spent on educational
work, but l venture to say that
less than ten per cent. of YOU
have been inside a sChoolroom since
the day your teachers and the school
board graduated you just to get rid of
you, or you were permanently remov-
ed from school for one reason or
other. You ought to get around 10
the school at least two or three times
each year TO encourage the teacher,
the school authorities and the pupil
by showing that you are interested in
seeing what you get out of those taxes.
You would go fast enough if the
school house were your factory, vine
yard, corntield, hennery or pigsty. Your
actions seem to prove that you do not
realize that children constitute the one
really important crop this country
raises. / wish / could have had every
one of you with me in Gary, Berkley,
Los Angeles and in Cincinnati in or
n hof h,, i
ed as l was at the interest in educa-
tion evinced by everybody. 1t would
be difficult to find in any of those
cities, a citizen who is not interested
in and thoroughly conversant with the
plans of education and progress of the
schools of his city. School interest is
displayed by every one-in office and
workshop, store and factory as we'll
as in the house. SCHOOL INTER-
EST is what needs TO be aroused and
fostered on the part of the citizens of
Harrisburg
Later he stated to the Rotary Club
that the smaller colleges in this State
are providing undergraduate instruc-
tiOn and training superior in some
ways to that provided by greatly ad-
vertised universities and that it was
the duty of the Harrisburg Rotary
Club to demonstrate this fact to the
public.
In accordance with a decision of the
club. DIR. Shope persuaded Susuehan-
ma University to present claims for
recognition and the occasion was a
success. In an address delivered to
the Alumni Association of Susque-
hanna University and elsewhere he set
forth the advantages that would ac-
crue to the educational interests of
this State by paying all the teachers
adequate salaries TWELVE MONTHS
in the year so that the teacher would
not have TO become a book agent three
postgraduate work and travel thus
making himself or herself a more and
more proficient teacher.
Further. having had to struggle for
an education himself, DR.. Shope has
always been ready to help the ambi-
tious poor boy to a college education.
In addition to his personal efforts
along this line. he fostered a students
loan fund in each Cf two institutions
of which he is a graduate. These two
funds have helped many young men
and women to realize their ambition
who would otherwise have been denied
the advantage OF a college education.
Stimulated by efforts along the
above lines, groups in several parts
of the State h ave been operating along
similar lines. From each of these
groups committees urged the forma-
tion of a State association to inaugu-
rate a united movement. This re-
suited in the organization of the
Pennsylvania Educational League and
DIR. Shope was elected president
The League though but a few weeks
old has several hundred members and,
judging by the interest manifested in
various parts of the State. it is not
unlikely that before ii is six months
old it will have membership of a
thousand or more. The officers will