Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-05-21
DIR. STRAYER AND
DIR. FNEGAN ARE
SPEAKERS HERE
Noted Educators Address the
Chamber of Commerce
MONDAY Luncheon

'If every State had contributed its
best men and the best of all of them
had been chosen to be the State Su-
perintendent of Public instruction
for Pennsylvania. Dr. Thomas e.
Finegan would have been that man."
DR.. George Drayton Strayer. of New
York City. president of the National
Educational Association, told the
members of the Harrisburg Chamber
of Commerce at luncheon in the
Penn Harris at noon to-day. He
congratulated Pennsylvania on pro-
curing his services.
DR.. Strayer. who was introduced
by Or. F. e. Downes, city superinten-
dent of schools and president of the
Pennsylvania State Educational Asso-
citation, was the special guest of the
Chamber and by rare good fortune.
DR.. Downes was able to have present
also DR.. Finegan himself. he having
come to Harrisburg unexpectedly to-
day to go over educational matters
with the Governor. DR.. Strayer in a
brief address said he had decided to
come to Pennsylvania from a very
congenial position as deputy commits
sioner of the New York school de-
partment because he is convinced
that there is opportunity here for
the rendering of greater service to
the people.
Emergency In Education
"Dr. Strayer spoke on the Elmer
gency in Education" saying that the
country is backward in many re-
spects, and that the Investigations
of the army during the war have en-
phasized the needs of radical revis-
ions and deyelopments
One-fifth of all the children who
attended school last year. he said.
were under the care of unframed
teachers. The greatest need is for
trained and adequately paid teach
ers. You must be willing to pay the
BILL" DR.. Strayer said and went into
a comparison of salaries here and in
New York State. Another great op-
portunity for service lies in an ade-
quate program for physical educa-
tion and health inspection in the
schools. giving as the basis of his ar
guments the physical unfitness de-
veloped by the army examinations.
Physical fitness is as necessary to
the extension of commerce as to the
conduct of a war" he said.
The Army also discovered, DR..
Strayer pointed out, that one out Of
five men examined were illiterates.
and from this uneducated class are
recruited the ultra-radicals, the an
archists, the Bolshevists and the 1.
w. w, led away from proper paths
by the demagoguery of their leaders
Remove illiteracy Is his prescription
for the cure of dangerous develop
ments of the kind mentioned.
Americanization for old as well as
the young of foreign birth is another
school problem the speaker said
must be taken up seriously, to the
end that many persons now ignored
and kept down may be permitted to
become the good American citizens
they desire to be. He praised Penn
sylvapia's continuation school sys-
TEN, and said that there is opportu-
nifty here for an advancement along
this line, citing England as an ex-
ample.
DIR. Strayer argued strongly in ia
vor of the coordination of the ma
tion's educational bureaus under the
head of a National Department of
Public Education, a bill for the Gre
alton of which is now in progress, on
the ground that it would hasten the
program of education he outlined in
his address and make for equality
of education for every child in the
United States.
Dr. Finegan will be invited to ad
dress the Chamber at a later date.