New-York tribune., 1920-04-12
Girls in Eighth Grade of
Bronx School Take
Place of Instructor Ill
From Work and Worry
Entire System at
Point of Collapse
so, 900 Pupils Sent Home
in Week; l4O, 600 More
Reduced to Half Time

New York's public school system is
breaking down. 1t is incapable Of car
rying it's load. The conditions are grow
ing worse. During one week last month
1896 ementary classes, about $4,000
children, were sent home from school
because there were no teachers for
them. If all these children were
paraded up Fifth Avenue it would re-
quire most of the daylight hours for
them to pass in review.
Those children who were not sent
home that same week, which was not
extreme, did not receive all the in
struction to which they are entitled.
Because there are not enough desks
and rooms, in addition to the shortage
of teachers, 100000 pupils received only
part time instruction. Each of these
was robbed Of one or more hours Of
advancement in education.
Substitutes Teach 10000
About 100000 pupils received their
instruction from substitute teachers A
leg uldA CC0CuCl III Vic ANSW 1VIh puU-
lie schools must have the equivalent of
a college education. preferably four
years at teachers training school.
Nowadays, so great is the need for
people to preside over classrooms. any
person who has had one year of high
school can pass the examination neces-
sary to win substitute teaching
license. The average Office boy could
pass this examination. Even so there
are not enough of these makeshift in
structors, and distracted elementary
school principals are forced to. select
bright pupils from the higher elemen-
tary grades to act as teachers. They
call them monitors. The best that can
be said of such an arrangement is that
it keeps children off the streets AS a
matter of course, the monitor loses
ground in her own class work.
In Public School 2, 169th Street and
Third Avenue, the Bronx, there are
eight girls of the eighth grade who
spend many of their school days act
ing as instructors in the lower grades.
AhS'A h1HtCc diC 0utIHC 3OlOotClH,
Bertha Hafemeyer, Josephine Bianco,
Sarah Kordovsky, Josephine Herd, Ida
Wagner, Sophie Abel and Molie Cohen.
Mrs. Elizabeth Donavan Haas is the
principal. She says:
Don't pity the poor teacher in this
situation. Pity the poor child Pity
the nation. Most of the teachers will
take care of themselves if they aren't
taken care of, but the children are
helpless"
Class "a Is Model
This is the story of forty-tive
eight-year-cld boys, sturdy little COM
pany who were on the roster of Public
School as Glass "a /; The teach
er was Miss Margaret Devereux, who
lives in YonkeA. They kept pace easily
with the other classes Of their gradA
Each morning their teacher subj ected
them to an inspection that was almost
military in the thoroughness with
which she examined face, neck, teeth,
ears and hands for traces of unclean-
Illness. She also examined their cloth
ing, with the result that these lads
were models of department and clean
illness.
This is not unsual. 1t is done in
every one of the lower grade classes IN
the schools. The effect is quite as re-
markable on morale as the celebrated
rule that every British soldier must
shave every morning, even in the
trenches.
Then Miss Devereux suffered what
school teachers have about accepted
as an occupational disease break
down of nerves, due perhaps to her
work, perhaps to outside causes, per-
haps to the combined strain of her work
and worry over making slender sal.
ary cover g modest budget. That was
in January,and Miss Devereux has been
unable to resume her school work since
then.
The principal, Mrs. Haas, was unable
to get substitute teacher to take Miss
Continued page nIns)