THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
By Emma H. Adams
THE formal opening of the annual convention of this important association occurred at three o'clock P. M., Tuesday, July 11, in Hazard's Pavilion, corner of Fifth and Olive Streets, Los Angeles. The great structure, including its main floor, first and second galleries, and with a seating capacity of 5,000, was packed, literally, as the services began, with educators, native and foreign, and with other persons awake to the interests of our national schools. With the stage, galleries, and roof decorated richly with the national colors, flowers, palm branches, festoons of colored lanterns for evening effect, and bright printed sentiments of welcome to the guests, the thronged interior spoke eloquently of good-will and endeavor for the cause which had brought the people together. Great numbers of eminent instructors on educational subjects, men and women who do the thinking for the cause of education, were in attendance from "our islands," and from all quarters of the continent. Scores of these teachers had come armed with an earnest address, a carefully thought-out essay, or an erudite paper, with which they expected to battle for America's millions of mentally-needy children. Numbers of them had grown aged in their vocation, and yet, to a man, they seemed as eager for achievements in pedagogy as did the recruits of yesterday. Regarded from the standpoint of its many departments, of the great questions considered, and of its certain out-comings in school work during the coming years, the convention just closed will rank as the most important meeting of educators ever held in any land. At no other annual meeting, it has been said, have been considered so many topics vital to the efficiency of the national schools. To the interests of the kindergarten, primary, and secondary schools were given the best thought of the ablest writers present, while high schools, normal schools, and university expansion received due share of helpful criticism and suggestion. The fact that thirteen different departments of work were scheduled by the association, and that from day to day sessions of these departments were conducted by men most eminent in their profession, as well as the wider range of subjects considered, indicates the broad ground covered by the National Educational Association and the scope of its endeavors. To attend the half of these sittings, and listen to the brilliant addresses made, to the remarkable papers and reports read, and to the keen discussions held, was in itself an education not to be scorned. And, on certain occasions, a quick mind might have discerned a peculiar trend of thought and argument on the part of the "more advanced" instructors. One evidence of this tendency appeared in a paper read at one of the general sessions in the pavilion, by Prof. S. T. Skidmore, of the Philadelphia Normal School. His subject was "Evolution and Ethics." During its reading, we noted such statements as follows: There is no such thing as positive evil. The present era is but the dawn of the vast human day. The race is but emerging from its condition of animalism. All that promotes selfhood aids in its development. The teaching profession is the trustee of this development. It should become the expert high commission of the world for framing the moral codes of this evolution. Now if it be true that evil is but the contrast of material realities with ideals of perfection, or of inferior character with superior moral nature, then the way to deal with evil is to stimulate development, to educate the human being out of lower into higher condition. A kindred line of teaching—if the paper and the discussion heard on the subject were not faulty in phraseology—was embraced in the "Culture Epoch Theory in Education," a feature of the Herbartian course of study in pedagogy. Herbart was a gifted German who taught that in child life, as in race life, periods occur which are especially favorable to culture. The child, but a small specimen of mere animalism at his birth, may be developed, if taken in hand at his culture epoch, into a human being of high grade. In brief, man, refined, noble, and highly endowed mentally, is evolved from a child animal. The process of evolution may include any number of years, ten, twenty, or thirty, according to ancestral influence and his own environments. It is doubtful if one in twenty of the attentive teachers who were present on at least two different occasions when abstruse papers were read on the subject, got a clear idea of the Herbartian theory of child training. Indeed, most of them, themselves, must have stood, then, at some point along the road between the child animal and fully-developed humanity. It is making but a fair estimate to say that fully one-half of the time of the convention was devoted to the interests of the child. In short, "the child" was the subject which drew the great convention together, for now-a-days students are children until they enter the university, high schools and normal schools being classed in the secondary grade. As a subject for investigation and study, the child was thoroughly picked to pieces before he emerged from all the departments. There was left of him bones only, and these scarcely articulated. To the child's brains, his memory, his imagination, his perceptive faculty, his moral nature—for not all the learned members of the corporation start the human being in animal-hood—his nerves, his eyes, his hands, his feet, were devoted much serious thought and talk; to the grand end, in some instances, that God may be glorified, and in others, that this "magnificent branch" of the imperial Anglo-Saxon race receive further uplifting. In some of the general sessions strong and fervid pleas were made for wide-spread and careful religious training of the children of the country. Prominent among the advocates of such education should be mentioned Right Rev. Bishop Montgomery, of the Catholic diocese. On this subject the bishop read a twenty minutes' paper, in which he was careful to say that it is not the province of the State to teach religion, therefore the State is right in ruling such instruction out of the schools it supports. Also he was careful to affirm that in the United States there should exist no union of Church and State. But for the right of the family and of the church to train the child religiously his voice must ever be raised, as well as for the right of every child to such tuition. Some auditors who followed the bishop closely, believed they discerned in his shrewdly-framed sentences a direct blow aimed at the public schools. An eminent teacher seated near the writer was heard to say, when the reader ceased, "That man would close every State school from Maine to California." An impressive paper entitled, "Quo Vadimus," was read by Mrs. Helen Grenfell, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Colorado. Mrs. Grenfell maintained that the authority of the parent over the child is superior to that of the teacher; that the right of the home over the child is greater than that of the school, and the parents and teachers should labor together for the child's development. Her paper was full of strength, and received marked approval from the parents present. No speaker of the convention made a happier impression upon the great audiences than did the President of the National Educational Association, Prof. E. Oram Lyte, Principal of the First State Normal School of Pennsylvania. His fine enunciation, majestic manner, and eloquent sentences, called forth great applause during the reading of his opening address. Expressing his approval of the expansion policy of President McKinley, he said: "I so thoroughly believe in the institutions of our country, in the dignifying influences which follow our flag, that I rejoice to watch the onward progress of our ever-conquering Republic, the triumphant march of the Anglo-Saxon race. Destiny points the way across the waters, as unerringly as it pointed the way for Columbus to our shores." In the same vein, but with argument still more striking, in favor of colonial separation, was the address of Dr. W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education. Among many others, Dr. Harris made this point: "Africa has been divided up among the nations of Europe. It is but a question of months when China will be partitioned among the great forces. Is it not our duty to have our hands in the work of division, to show that we can hold inferior races for their benefit?" Thus, for the first time, perhaps, did political influence creep into the National Educational Association. A question of exceeding interest to advanced students has been that of a great national university at Washington. Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, appeared as its strong advocate. President Jordan had in mind an institution which should make available to men and women studying in definite lines, the many splendid facilities for such study already existing in the city of Washington in connection with the great national institutions. Wholly opposed to this movement were the views of Dr. N. M. Butler, of Columbia College, New York City. In his opinion, and he had given the subject no little study, our true universities in this country afford all the facilities needed by men or women taking post-graduate studies. Dr. Butler had been detained at the kindergarten department, and did not hear President Jordan's presentation of the case. A recapitulation of its points brought the two earnest friends of liberal education quite to agreement. The discussion of the subject was intensely interesting.