1930_0611supplement ---------- Northwest Viking, Quarterly Alumni Supplement - 1930 June - Page 1 ---------- More Than Thousand Teachers Unemployed In State of Washington, W. E. A. Survey Shows ----- ELIZABETH M. HOPPER IN THE FALL of 1929, the Washington Education Association made a brief study of the conditions in the State and tried to determine as exactly as possible the number of teachers in the State who were without positions. It was estimated that approximately one thousand teachers were unemployed, this figure including the experienced and inexperienced, the successful and unsuccessful teachers in both high school and elementary fields. Various teachers have combined to bring about this condition. Overproduction in the teacher-training institutions, influx of teachers from other states, economic pressure in other fields and consolidation of schools, may be mentioned as some of the most apparent causes. The rise in requirements from two, to three years, of training, with the corresponding change in Life Diploma requirements, will tend to control the first two factors. The State Department of Education is curtailing greatly the number of certificates granted to teachers who come here from other states. Out of nearly a thousand applications for certificates, only two hundred and fifty were granted last year and these were given to teachers with special qualifications which did not bring them into direct competition with graduates of the local institutions. The unemployment prevalent in so many other fields is throwing additional pressure on the schools. Many married women who hold life diplomas, and whose husbands are unable to obtain work, are seeking teaching positions in order to support their families. This, undoubtedly works a hardship on the inexperienced teachers. Consolidation is, of course, a step in the right di5rection and, in the long run, it will eliminate only the weaker teachers. The so-called “Showalter Bill,” which is to come before the next legislature, will assuredly make some changes in the methods of selecting teachers for the smaller schools, and will tend to make such selection a professional, rather than a personal matter. The over-supply of teachers is not merely a state problem. It is nation-wide. Several of the Eastern states, notably Rhode Island and New Jersey, are taking measures to control the situation. Rhode Island has but one teacher-training institution, and each town is allowed to send only a certain percentage of high school graduates to the teachers’ college, and these students are very carefully selected. In New Jersey an attempt is being made to predict the number of teachers that will be needed from year to year, and only the number necessary to meet the anticipated demand are admitted to the institutions for training. The fact that the State Department of Education here is considering the problem officially gives promise of eventual adjustment in Washington. Presumably there will be concerted action among all the states within the next ten years to regulate the supply and demand for well-trained teachers. According to the records of the Appointment Bureau during the last three years, there is always a place for a wholly desirable teacher with first-class credentials, particularly for those who have special ability in art, music, industrial arts, or physical education. By “wholly desirable” is meant one who is comparatively young, who has had four or five years of successful experience, who is unmarried, and whose personality and social conduct make her an asset to the school and community. ARCHITECT’S CONCEPTION OF NEW P. E. BUILDING Reaction to Beauty is Expressed By Children Through Creative Work ----- MISS A. L. PACKAM The Junior Viking, a training school publication which consists of poetry, prose, music and drawings submitted by the children from the pre-primary to the Eighth grade, is published by the Eighth grade and is in mimeograph form. This form lends itself to the exact reproduction of children’s drawings and its type can be easily adapted to different age levels. There are fifty pages, size 7x11 inches, with the cover sheet illustrated with a colored block print made by one of the students. Through creative work in the Junior Viking, comes an expression of the children’s reaction to the beauty and happiness around them. They are encouraged to express their feelings in written form, and by this sharing of thought and feeling with others, their power of creative work is bound to grow, Ernest Dimnet, a French philosopher, writes that all children are true philosophers until the age of ten, when the obstacle of grown-up conventions and education itself as it has been causes the child to keep his thoughts to himself. He believes that children have natural inclinations to express themselves spontaneously and creatively and this should be encouraged to continue through life. Here is an eight-year-old boy’s view of fog: FOG The misty fog rolls all around On the country, On the town. Over the church towers all around On the town. The people say they don’t like fog Because it covers up the town. I like the fog! I’m tired of seeing the old dingy town. I’m glad to see the old friend of mine - The fog All over the country, All over the town. -Buddy Lobe, 8 years. Then notice this humor of an eighth grade goy: KING ARTHUR “I like not these square ends,” And King Arthur looked around. “I want a table full of bends; I’ll make a table round.” Then he got his battleax, And upon the table climbed; He began with strong and mighty whacks; Their laughs he did not mind. The chips, they flew; the pile, it grew; And again he looked around. “Now, my friends, who’ve nought to do, Clean these chips up off the ground.” -John Slagle. -----o----- An expression with more thought content is by this thirteen-year-old girl: DEATH OF THE PUEBLO From out the dark sky the stars shine down Upon a Pueblo deserted and alone; Now lonely, broken, and yet of renown; Where once was life, now is scattered bone. Long years ago, the Indian tribesman Wandered in search of a home. And, happening by chance, on a cliff-dwelling clan, Conquered and took them for their own. The tribes intermingled and, in a strange way, They labored on dwellings, pottery, and gourds Until, preserved in dishes made of clay, They feasted that winter on food they had stored. But one day a stronger clan came their way To add to their fears and their regret; And soon both their dwellings and they Lay crumbled and fallen; - their death they had met. So the stars shine down from out the sky Upon the Pueblo deserted and lone - Lonely and fallen always to lie, All broken fragments and littered bone. -Margaret Olson 13 years. Proposed New P. E. Building Will Be Modern Structure ----- PRES. C. H. FISHER THE NEW Physical Education building will be built first of all to take care of the physical education classes and develop athletics and recreation for the whole student body, and although there will be ample space to take care of exhibition games in basketball, the building will not be built primarily for athletic teams but to contribute something through physical education to all students. There will be a large gymnasium for men where basketball games will be played and this gymnasium will have a seating capacity of about fifteen hundred. The gymnasium will be wide enough so that with the collapsible bleachers removed, there could be two basketball games going on at the same time. There will be two gymnasiums for women which will take care of physical education classes and sports. There will also be a small one-story auxiliary gymnasium, which will provide an attractive place for all classes in dancing. The plan calls for a swimming pool thirty-five feet wide and seventy-five feet long. The swimming pool will be a one-story building and will have plenty of exposure for lighting and ventilation. Under the gymnasiums on the first floor will be the locker rooms for men and for women, together with showers and lavatory rooms. A great deal of time has been spent planning these facilities so as to get the proper light and ventilation. Some recent changes in the plans have made it possible to provide small handball courts which were not originally included in the plans. There will be individual offices for both men and women instructors, and classrooms will be provided where teachers can meet groups for instruction. There will be two clubrooms, one for the “W” club and one for the W. A. A. The building is planned to be used by men and women and yet it is so arranged that there cannot possibly be any conflict in the use of the building by men and women. The building will take advantage of the latest ideas in construction and also in providing adequate facilities for a progressive program in physical education and recreation for the whole student body. -----o----- Summer Electives In Music Offered MAUDE M. SLAWSON The Music Department is offering a number of elective courses this summer besides those regularly required for graduation. It is seldom that these courses are offered during the school year so summer students should avail themselves of the opportunity to take them. Elementary Harmony, Junior High School Music Education, Appreciation, Conducting, and Chorus, are among the electives to be given. The numbers of the required courses have been changed. Music 3a is Primary Music Education and Music 3b is Intermediate Music Education, while Music 1 and 2 are sight singing courses which are the prerequisites to all other music courses. ---------- Northwest Viking, Quarterly Alumni Supplement - 1930 June - Page 2 ---------- Northwest Viking Quarterly Alumni Supplement PUBLISHED BY THE NORTHWEST VIKING IN THE INTERESTS OF THE TEACHING ALUMNI ----- ----- EDITORIAL We submit for your consideration the first experimental edition of the “Quarterly Alumni Supplement” to The Northwest Viking. If this issue receives your approval, another publication may be made during the summer quarter, and if that proves successful, the Alumni Supplement may become a regular feature of The Viking. The purpose of the Supplement, as we have conceived it, is to reach the Alumni, and particularly the teaching Alumni, with articles of a professional nature written by experienced and well-informed persons, which may afford sources of interest and information to the people who are furthering the cause of education “in the field.” We believe that though such a publication as we shall try to make this Supplement, the people who have studied here will not lose their connection with the institution when they are graduated, but will remain in intimate contact with the school and its work, and that gradually the Normal will become the nucleus of a large body of teachers, sharing their experiences through the school publications, and going to it for renewed inspiration. We are proud that the Normal school is gaining the approbation of educators all over the United States through the contributions to education which it is making. We are also proud of the achievements which are being made by Bellingham graduates in the teaching field. We do not thing that we are too optimistic in believing that if we can bridge the gap that exists between the experiments and improvements which are being made in school here, and those which are being practiced by earnest Alumni, that the fusion and exchange of experiences will be worthwhile. We believe that Alumni will find it pleasant to keep in touch with their friends and with the work of their school. We recognize the value of trial and error experience, and if our graduates offer us their encouragement and support, we shall try again and err again until we have made of this Alumni Supplement a good medium of serious information and friendly gossip. RAY CRAFT, Editor Northwest Viking. -----o----- A NEED FULFILLED One of the greatest needs of the Bellingham Normal School has been adequate contact between the school and the thousands of Alumni engaged in professional work. If every tie between student and school is to be severed on graduation day, the losers are the student, the school, and the state. If the relationship might live, and with time grow in significance, everyone would benefit. A periodical issue of an Alumni Supplement to The Viking would fulfill this need. May the success of the present issue be an assurance of its continuance! ALBERT BOOMAN President of the Alumni. Fishermen IRENE SCHAGEL ‘29 I saw little men In shell-like crafts Hauling in hand over hand Silver nets from the sea - I saw little men In the giddy ships of Life Pulling in nets - searching for fish. Clinging to the mesh were the scales of Desire, But the fish were gone. -----o----- Need for Math Felt In Study of Science E. A. BOND The trend of thought concerning education today seems to be in the direction of the assimilation of the meanings in the various fields and their application to the problems that life presents. This we would call a general education, or education in general. In addition to this scholarship, the individual needs specific training in the upper reaches of some subject. He does this not only for his own sake but quite as much from the fact that his contribution to the sum total of knowledge lies in that direction. Furthermore, the accepting of the facts of the investigations of others without rendering in return advance in some line seems unfair. “Hopeless cases of fine minds gone soft and flabby are so common that it is not too much to say that arrested intellectual development is the great national disease of our educationally privileged classes. Since men now in the fifties went to college the whole universe has been taken down and reassembled in a new and unfamiliar form. Science has been going ahead by running leaps.” This statement was taken from The Saturday Evening Post in March, 1929. Now, unfortunately for the casual and easily daunted reader, modern science is written in mathematics and in the dialect of the calculus. One cannot get very far in any branch of science without feeling the necessity for mathematics far beyond that which is given in the usual college course. Lack of easy familiarity with higher mathematics is a formidable obstacle between our ignorance and any real grasp of the modern conception of the universe in which we live and the life we are to live in it. Furthermore, this obstacle will continue to bar our paths until we appreciate the importance of mathematical studies. -----o----- Teacher’ College, Columbia University, has completed a survey conducted throughout the country in teacher-training schools pertaining to “Social Background and Activities of Teacher College Students.” The report shows that the American teacher likes motion pictures better than the drama, prefers musical comedies to grand opera, and chooses popular magazines and novels in preference to any other form of reading material. She comes from the lower middle-class society her father being manager of a small business, a skilled workman or a farmer, her sister is a stenographer, nurse or business clerk. She is native born and has never traveled more than 200 miles from her birthplace or visited more than one large city. More than 75 per cent of the teachers’ homes own an automobile; two-thirds are equipped with bathrooms and in more than one-half of the homes there are less than 200 books. -----o----- ----- SUGGESTIONS WANTED This first issue of The Alumni Supplement was produced after much “fumbling” in the dark. What it will be from now on will depend upon the wishes and suggestions of the people for whom it is intended. The Viking staff will appreciate letters or interviews with any graduates or friends of the School who have any suggestions to make toward the planning of forthcoming issues. Would you like more personal stories? Would you enjoy reading letters from other teachers? Would you like to see book reviews published? Whatever the features you would enjoy, please make them known, because The Supplement from now on will be in fact an Alumni Supplement. Bees in Schoolroom Prove Interesting MILDRED MOFFAT ANYTHING which aids the individual in a better understanding of life is worthy of a place in the curriculum. No matter what form of life holds the center of interest for the time being, certain basic concepts and attitudes are developed through the study. The children begin to appreciate the inter- ---------- Northwest Viking, Quarterly Alumni Supplement - 1930 June - Page 3 ---------- Play Day Proves Very Successful RUTH WEYTHMAN Physical Education is keeping abreast with the general modern educational program by including activities that are based upon natural physical skill. It is socializing these activities by encouraging mass participation through the socialized Play Day, where groups meet for the purpose of playing with instead of against each other. Such a Play Day has some activity in which even the novice can find enjoyment in participation. The annual Play Day participated in by the Training School could be easily carried out in most any situation with greater or lesser organization. The Play Day of the previous year was recalled. Each class selected a representative to a central committee and informed him as to the color and badge for that grade. The committee came together, settled conflicts in choice and made other adjustments. Each grade made its own distinctive marking and invited guests to participate in the picnic lunch which was held in the class rooms, because of bad weather. Through discussion during the Physical Education period, the children in each grade selected the rhythmical activity, the games which they wished to play on Play Day. These activities were chosen from their regular work and although they were reviewed, the children were not drilled in them to the point of perfect performance. They did not want to kill the joy of playing that too often comes, through long practice for the pleasure of the spectator. After lunch and a story hour all gathered in the large gymnasium, the weather not permitting us to use the grassy knoll on the campus. In turn each grade did a rhythmical activity for the other grades. In some instances one did a dance and then inviting another group as partners. This program followed: Program Dancing Skip … Pre-Primary Did You Ever See a Lassie? … First Grade Carrousel … Second Grade Jolly Is the Miller … Third Grade Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines … Fourth Grade Mats and Pyramids … Fifth and Sixth Grade Boys How Do You Do? … Fifth Grade Girls Dutch Couples … Sixth Grade Girls Virginia Reel … Seventh Grade Girls Sleigh Bells … Eighth Grade Girls Tumbling … Boys of Seventh and Eighth Grades Windup of all Grades, led by Pre-Primary After the Windup the Pre-Primary and First Grade will continue their play on the knoll. Grades Two to Eight will play on Normal Field. Cat and Mouse, Squirrels in Trees … First Grade Gardener and Scamp, Black and White, Soldiers and Robbers … Second Grade Relays, Fire Engine, Long Ball … Third Grade Long Ball … Fourth Grade Long Ball and Base Ball … Fifth and Sixth Girls Base Ball … Fifth and Sixth Boys Base Ball and Ring Tennis … Seventh and Eighth Girls Base Ball … Seventh and Eighth Boys Service Ball … Seventh Boys and Girls After our hour inside the weather changed, allowing each grade to proceed to a designated spot on the playground to play the games they had chosen. Play ended about three o’clock with the children feeling it had been their day. In a Play Day involving two or more schools much the same organization is necessary. Color teams made up of children from each school (if there are three schools, each team has children) who play hard for their team. A spirit of mutual goodwill is developed. It fosters competition but discourages rivalry. Instead of rival schools we have friendly schools. American Child Health Association, 370 Seventh avenue, New York City, has done a great deal to advance the Play Day, and considerable material is available on organization and conducting Play Days. They are being favored in our State, bringing girls together in basketball Play Days instead of pitched battles for county championships, which so often have undesirable social and physical effects. New Industrial Arts Courses To Be Given Besides the usual required courses in the Industrial Arts Department, a number of special courses for teachers who wish additional work in primary, intermediate or upper grade industrial arts will be offered for the summer session. Special attention has been given to problems of teachers who may return for advance work during the summer session. Miss Z. Z. Wilson, supervisor of Industrial Arts at Jackson, Maryland, will be here, offering courses in primary and intermediate work. Two advanced courses will be offered in addition to the fields just mentioned. The “General Shop” idea or the diversified activity shop, which is receiving much attention in small schools everywhere over the country will be studied in a course dealing with aims, equipment, management and job sheets, as used in the general shop. In addition there will be a course in upper grade shop, dealing with electrical projects which children could conduct in six to eight hours. Shop drawing, cabinet work, and printing will also be featured. Mr. Paul H. Rule will be the instructor in a course useful for shop teachers in Home Economics, which is intended to stress the common household uses of everyday industrial appliances. -----o----- Region Offers Fine Places for Pictures HERBERT C. RUCKMICK Students who plan to go on the excursions or hikes about Pubet Sound and to Mount Baker have rare opportunities to use their cameras. The photography course, which will be offered this summer, also has excellent possibilities as a teaching medium. Camera clubs in schools, studies of the industrial significance of photography give much insight in the way of chemistry and physics. The course, Industrial Arts 5 in Photography is devoted to much practical work in the operation of cameras, developing of films and prints, enlarging and making of lantern slides. All of these activities are such as would be teachable to Junior High school children, besides giving much aid to the student in learning how to operate his own camera. -----o----- Musical Artists’ Course Has Successful Year The Musical Artists’ Course of this last season, sponsored by the Bellingham Women’s Music Club and the Normal School, was one of unusual merit and brought to this city artists of rare ability. The course offered a wide variety of numbers ranging from vocal, piano, and string instruments, to ensemble singing and symphonic band music. Friedman, a skilled German pianist, opened the season with a concert which was probably one of the finest of the entire course. He was followed by Zimbalist, a violinist who was a student of the famous old teacher, Leopold Auer. Zimbalist was received with enthusiasm by everyone but appealed particularly to the violin students. The Mount Baker theater was filled to capacity to hear the Carlton Symphony Band, which is a college organization coming from Northfield, Minnesota. This symphony band is one of the best of its kind in the United States and typifies a coming development in ensemble playing. Lawrence Tibbett, the young American baritone, who became famous over night, won the admiration of the audience through his natural, unaffected and truly great singing. He left a lasting impression that probably cannot be replaced. The unusualness of the a Cappella Choir which came to us from Los Angeles, made it an outstanding event. Mina Hager, contralto, closed the season with a beautifully interpreted program. The Artists’ course will be offered again next year and the committee in charge has chosen a very splendid course for the 1930-31 season. -----o----- F. A. Turnbull, 1919, is principal of the Franklin school in Aberdeen, Washington. Mrs. Turnbull, 1923, teaches a private kindergarten, where she is featuring work in music PERSONALS Regarding the Alumni and the Work Which They Are Doing Carrie Crippen, who graduated from Normal in 1926, is at present at the head of the book and stationery department of The Paris Store, in Great Falls, Montana. Mary Woodbridge another active member of the Class of 1927, is also in Great Falls. -----o----- Barney Chichester, graduate of 1929, who for the past year has been a member of the Foster, Wash., school staff, has accepted the position of Athletic Director of District 144, King county, Washington. Hazel E. Vedani, 1929, who has taught for the past year at Custer, will attend the University of California at Los Angeles, this summer. -----o----- Sybil L. Tucker, 1925, is director of Girls’ Work and Junior Church in the Centenary-Wilbur M. E. church, Portland, Oregon. Her work includes Camp Fire, Girl Reserve, and Girl Scout groups. Kirby L. Smith, 1916, superintendent of schools in Napavine, Washington, has accepted the office of superintendent of school in Sequim for next year. -----o----- Earl H. Evans, 1912, principal of the Lincoln school, Everett, in co-operation with the Music Department, has organized a chorus and two instrumental music classes in that school. Ruth A. Gnagey, ---------- Northwest Viking, Quarterly Alumni Supplement - 1930 June - Page 4 ---------- Child Needs Studied By Parent Groups ELSIE WENDLING PARENTS are interested in learning more about their children, and what can be done for their welfare. This is shown by the questions they ask of the teacher concerning Mary’s health or Johnny’s behavior. Here, in the city of Bellingham this interest has caused the formation and organization of study groups, such as the Pre-Primary, the Primary, the Elementary, and the Adolescent. The particular phases of study during the year are determined by the parents in the group. A leader is found who is responsible for planning the work, finding material and assigning the work for individuals in the group and bringing in speakers who can clear up doubtful points and leading the discussions. A chairman is chosen by them to conduct regular business, such as announcing the time and place of meeting, calling the meeting to order, conducting the routine of business, making reports, etc. The elementary group this past year began its work with a brief survey of the relation of the public to the schools, but soon launched directly into a study of children’s needs, stressing especially the physical development and hygiene of the child. The year’s work, with two meetings a month, has only begun the discussion of this large problem. Every community, large or small, has the same desire to know more about its children, to learn what is considered best at the present time for the welfare of its citizens. The teacher in that group can find many opportunities of being of service without danger of interference with “authority,” which used to be the bugaboo of the Parent-Teacher organization, or without the troublesome testimonial meeting. The parent must keep up with the trends in education if he is to understand the child. -----o----- Speech Clinic Helps Defective Cases A new feature of the work in the speech department at the Normal this year is the clinic for the correction of speech defects. It is the third such clinic in a teacher training institution on the Coast and the first in the State of Washington. James Carrell, an instructor in the department of speech, is in charge of the corrective work. The purpose of the clinic is to undertake the treatment of speech defects in the children of the Training school and to train prospective teachers I the methods of correcting such defects. About three per cent of the school children suffer from speech defects, according to various surveys that have been made. No figures are available for the State of Washington, but a study made by Dr. Earl Wells of Oregon State College disclosed that about eight per cent of the school children in Oregon had defective speech. All types of speech defects are treated in the clinic. The commonest disorders are stammering, lisping, “baby talk,” sound substitutions and bad voice quality. Sixteen such cases are being treated at present. Much of the correction work is done by students under supervision. The clinical practice is a part of the course in Speech Correction Methods, where an attempt is made to allow every student to take one case of defective speech. Those who have completed the course in Speech Correction Methods may earn additional credits by continuing as teachers the following quarter. Problems Are Raised by Comparing 8th Grade and Normal Aptitudes BUREAU OF RESEARCH Test Grade or Normal Mean (aver.) Stand Devi. No. of Cases Stand. Req. % of 8th grade pupils equ’l or surp. Required Stadn’ng English Eighth Grade 23.13 4.69 468 19 79% Normal 58.47 15.72 506 55 42% History Eighth Grade 44.98 17.29 804 Normal 58.03 18.49 541 64 37% Geography Eighth Grade 73.27 20.33 771 Normal 39.71 16.08 443 41 41% Arithmetic Reasoning Eighth Grade 52.15 17.42 835 Normal 10.34 3.89 497 11 45% Arithmetic Computation Eight Grade 12.51 3.41 913 Normal 21.65 5.05 562 *In English usage the score is given in terms of the number of errors. Hence the lower the score the higher the standing. For a number of years a battery of achievement tests have been given to all students who enter Bellingham State Normal School. This battery of tests includes tests in English usage, spelling, history, geography, handwriting, arithmetic reasoning and arithmetic computation. Certain standards have been set in English usage, arithmetic reasoning, arithmetic computation and spelling which must be attained by all students before they are permitted to enter upon their practice teaching. It has been assumed that these standards are at least as high as the accomplishment of the average eighth grade pupil. In order that a comparison might be made between the accomplishment of the students entering the normal school and the eighth grade pupils of the State, the achievement tests in English usage, arithmetic reasoning, arithmetic computation, history and geography were given to about five hundred pupils in the eighth grades in the following school systems: Anacortes, Bellingham, Blaine, Bremerton, Centralia, Chehalis, Everett, Hoquiam, Mount Vernon, Port Angeles, Seattle, Sedro-Woolley, and Snohomish. The results of these tests when given to eighth grade pupils as compared to the results achieved by students entering the normal school, who took the same form of tests, reveal some interesting facts and give rise to some important problems. The following table gives the average score for both the eighth grade pupils and the students entering the normal school, the standard deviation, and the number of cases upon which these results are based. The standard which must be reached before being permitted to enter upon practice teaching and the per cent of eighth grade pupils who reach or surpass this standard are also given for each test: It is obvious from the figures appearing in the last column of the above table that the standards which must be met by students before they are permitted to do their practice teaching are not unreasonably high. The marked superiority of the eighth grade pupils in the field of arithmetic computation is very noticeable. Should the standard which normal pupils must now attain in this subject be raised? In none of the other subjects in which these tests were given, are the standards set by the normal school markedly higher than the achievement of the average eighth grade pupil. -----o----- Hoh River Offers Problem to Teacher Imagine teaching at a school, nine miles of walking or horseback riding, from even a country road. Max Stewart, a graduate of Bellingham Normal in 1927, has been doing just that. He teaches a school of five students, upon the Hoh river in Jefferson county, Washington. Four of his pupils belong to one family; the other is his nephew. They have a one-room building, the teacher baching in half of the cabin. Mr. Stewart says that they have plenty of good textbooks and are not handicapped from that standpoint. The difficulty lies with the children themselves. They are intelligent, but the youngsters have never seen cars, brick buildings or modern civilization in action. And all this is right in the State of Washington. That one-half the world does not know how the other half lives, would seem true, after all. Help in Testing Given By Bureau BUREAU OF RESEARCH Up to the present time, the Bureau of Research has confined its activities to problems arising within the Normal school and the Training school. It has recently been agreed that certain types of service should be offered by the Bureau to public school people of the State, especially our graduates. These services include answers to inquiries concerning the setting up of a testing program, the selection of proper tests to use for a given purpose, aid in interpreting the results of a testing program and help in defining and carrying through research problems. The field of testing has become so broad that it is impossible for the teacher or even the superintendent, to keep abreast of the new tests, their uses and their limitations. More and more tests are being published. This is, indeed, a splendid thing, for tests must be increasingly better to gain recognition. It also allows objective testing in many new fields each year in which standard t4ests were not previously employed. Teachers are constantly making greater and more varied use of the teacher-made objective tests. This is a growing field and one worthy of study by the progressive teacher. Such tests, to be worthwhile, must be properly constructed and their results properly interpreted. The bureau is quite willing to offer suggestions and criticize any material of this nature which teachers wish to send in. Many of the problems in education can be solved in no other way than by experimentation in the classroom. The more progressive teachers in the country are coming to recognize this fact and are doing more experimental work in connection with their regular teaching. Others are co-operating with colleges and universities in experimental work. We hope that a number of the graduates of Bellingham Normal will become interested in setting up experiments of various kinds, the results of which will influence their teaching practice. Such studies might be illustrated by: The amount of improvement made by a deficient pupil when given a definite amount of individual aid as compared to improvement when treated as one of a group; the most efficient method of presenting a given unit of materials; the amount of improvement in a given ability as the result of a given project. Teachers who keep from year to year data of various kinds, will find it possible to make some enlightening and interesting studies based on this material. This will be especially true if the teacher has been teaching the same grade for several years. The Bureau of Research will be very glad to lend any assistance possible to teachers, principals and superintendents in outlining the procedures in connection with experiments which they wish to conduct. -----o----- Evelyn Tawlks, 1927, has been confined to her home in Everet for the past two years with illness. While in attendance at Normal Miss Tawlks was active in club and social activities. -----o----- Elton K. Korsborn, 1928-29, is a member of the staff of the Central school in Snohomish. Mrs. Korsborn is Junior High coach, Scoutmaster and playground supervisor. Many Agencies Aid In Promoting Peace NORA B. CUMMINS UNQUESTIONABLY the greatest problems of our generation center around international relations. Busy people are often in need of information concerning subjects of interest in the field. The following organizations are among the most important agencies that have been created to PPPPP