The Wrangell sentinel., 1923-01-25
The Goal of Alaskan
 Education

| a regular town council in the local l ity, a representative of the Junior 1 City visits the adult council meetings takes notes of the deliberations of their elders and then reports back to the Junior City the actions taken.
 This Junior City work is applied democracy. These days we have | lot written about citizenship courses, but as yet nothing has been attempt ed to better fix in the minds of the present generation the principles of Democracy than this Junior City for the reason that an interest in gov ernment is developed while the pupil is in school. When he becomes twen- ty-one years of age and logically in herits citizenship and becomes one of the two million boys and girls of the United States who annually pass into the active class of citizens, those who have actually practiced citizen ship according to the Laboratory method' of the Junior City are al- ready prepared to lead the civic life of the community. To organize the school boys and girls of today into | working force to attain the goal in 1930 is the imperative call of the teachers of 1922-23.
 In my visits to the various towns in Southeast Alaska, where I meet and talk with many different boys, I have yet to find one who does not consider the Boy Scout Manual as one of the best books brought to his attention. The Boy Scout movement, being national in its scope, appeals to the boys the country over.
 The boy learns from it, first of all. something of the country in which he lives. He learns of the different kinds of birds and trees, of the land and water around him, he learns how to tie knots and to splice ropes and also something of the telegraphic code, besides many other things most useful for any boy who lives in a pioneer country. There is no worth while, practical subject which can not come within the range of the Boy Scout work. If as a famous teacher is supposed to have said, "The ideal school is boy on one end of a. log and a teacher at the other end" surely, with the personal con- tact existing between the scoutmas- ter and the troop. conditions are most fave able for the Boy Scout work to right abreast of the ideal school
 What is true of Boy Scout work is equally true of the Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls movement. Girls love to belong to organizations which are all their own. The man. uals of these two movements should be at all schools and at least one or ganiZation created which would be- come a permanent affair in the com munity.
 There are other activities outside the routine schoolroom work which local communities might we'll profit by adopting. One thing is certain, somethig new, something different, something new, something different, pie of Alaska must be started if we are to show a hundred per cent lit- eracy standard in the census of 1880.
 At that time every little communi- ty will be listed according to the number in the community who can | read and write, just as was done in the census of 1920; therefore as teachers as pivots around which the educational thought of the communi- ty revolyes, we owe it to the town and the Territory, we owe it to ourselves, to start a campaign to raise the lit eracy standard throughout Alaska.
 What definite, practical method shall we use to secure the desired end? I offer one. In the Red Cross war work in Alaska, the spirit which prompted action was that every wo- | man had a chance to knit her pa triotism into the socks furnished by local chapters. If each local teach
 CT throughout Alaska will organize P.-T.A., Junior City, Boy Scout, a Camp Fire Girls, or some other movement suited to local needs, and
 uses that organization to secure the l facts on the present status of literacy
 in the various towns of the Territo-
 ry, the first great step toward the desired goal will be attained this
 school year of 1922-23.
 Then the adult organization, with
 the census facts on literacy of the
 town before it, has a definite prob
 lem to solve. Whenever PIT. As have.
 lost their rightful place in the con- munity it is usually on account of