The editors of Pathfinder Magazine were rightfully scandalized to report that the Mississippi State Senate voted in favor of purchasing two sets of civics books for the school children of their state:
[The] idea behind this, said the Senate Education Committee, was to eliminate instructions for voting from the books to be distributed to Negro pupils.
State Sponsored Ignorance (Pathfinder Magazine, 1940) Read More »
A religion-in-the-schools trial, held last week in the Champaign, Illinois Circuit Court, will probably make history. The plaintiff was Mrs. Vashti McCollum, 32, pert, wide-eyed wife of a University of Illinois professor, demanding that the Champaign School Board discontinue a five-year program of religious instruction in school buildings, on the ground that the constitutional separation of church and state is jeopardized.
Posted herein was one of the first of many articles concerning what would come to known as the landmark Supreme Court case McCollum v. Board of Education (1948): the court decided in her favor.
Click here to read about Darwin in the schools.
Kicking God Out of the Schools (Newsweek Magazine & PM Tabloid, 1945) Read More »
What do you know: the same arguments existed 100 years ago, too…
The Battle Over History in the Twenties (Pathfinder Magazine, 1926) Read More »
‘The public school system will become a vast political machine.’ And this machine, it is charged, ‘will give a Federal Administration the opportunity of creating an educational autocracy, really endangering the liberty of thought and information, which is a basic right of the people.’
This article pertains to a bill that was before the Congress one hundred years ago that proposed the creation of a Department of Education. The bill was defeated. The proposed legislation was enthusiastically supported by the National Education Association.
Should the Federal Government Fund Schools at All? (Literary Digest, 1921) Read More »
‘The public school system will become a vast political machine.’ And this machine, it is charged, ‘will give a Federal Administration the opportunity of creating an educational autocracy, really endangering the liberty of thought and information, which is a basic right of the people.’
This article pertains to a bill that was before the Congress one hundred years ago that proposed the creation of a Department of Education. The bill was defeated. The proposed legislation was enthusiastically supported by the National Education Association.
Should the Federal Government Fund Schools at All? (Literary Digest, 1921) Read More »
This 1943 article by the noted American sociologist, Willard Waller (1899 – 1945), reported on the impact that W.W. II was having on the American educational system. Waller pointed out that during the course of 1942-43 school year, as many as 189,000 teachers had left their classrooms in order to work in defense plants. The author argued four distinct points that would halt the mass exodus – among them was the cry that salaries of teachers must be raised to the point where they match favorably with industry.
‘Revolt in the Classroom (The Saturday Review, 1943) Read More »
The census-takers of 1920 to the people of America:
Can you read and write?
Five million men and women of America responded:
We cannot!
American Illiteracy in 1920 (Time Magazine, 1923) Read More »
The kids who are discussed in this article would be called LD today – you don’t want to know how they were referred to in the early Twenties. Back then there were no Federally-funded commissions thronging with sympathetic PhD candidates to ramble on about convergence issues, processing concerns, the-classroom-learning-environment and the Learning Disabled. There were only frustrated kids, frustrated teachers and broken-hearted parents. This 1937 news article reports on the pioneering teachers at Seward Park High School in New York City and the earliest attempts to address the needs of students who suffered from language processing disorders, dyscalculia, dyslexia, dysgraphia and America’s favorite – good ol’ ADHD.
Trying to Understand Learning Disabilities (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937) Read More »
Ten million Americans can’t read and write, thousands of teachers are underpaid and, try as they may, our poorer states cannot afford to do anything about it. Every Congress since 1919 has refused to improve the situation… The truth seems to be that schools are no longer America’s sweetheart. When there is money to be divided in a state, roads come first, public health second and schools third.
Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who loitered on every street corner during the Great Depression…
‘Our Schools Are A Scandal” (Collier’s Magazine, 1946) Read More »
In 1948 the American history professor Henry Steele Commager (1902 – 1998) read this article that named the most powerful men in Cold War Washington – he then began to compose a list of his own, a list that he felt was far more permanent in nature. Commager wrote the names of the most influential thinkers of the past 100 years, leaders and writers who he credited for having supplied us with our symbols, our values, our ideas and ideals.
They Molded the American Mind (’48 Magazine, 1948) Read More »
