--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Pederson, N. Alvin collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 22 number: 11 published: 1919-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Pederson, N. Alvin, "The Future of the N. E. A.," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 11 (September 1919): 980–983.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera22011unse start_page: 980 end_page: 983 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22011unse publication_year: 1919 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Future of the N. E. A. Future of the N. E. A. By N. Alvin Pedersen The National Education Association celebrated its birthday in Milwaukee, during the week of July 1, 1919. Some splendid things were said and done there. Yet one could not escape the impression that forces of disintegration are at work in the associa- tion, that will, if not checked, injure the organization. The edu- cators of the United States can not afford to let this occur. Plans have been laid, to be sure, for the next session of the N. E. A., a year hence. An admirable educator has been elected president. Mrs. Preston, of Washington, is a capable woman; she is sur- rounded by a corps of efficient associate officers. On the surface the water is calm, but underneath are rocks that may split the N. E. A. Shall men or women pilot the teachers' ship? This is one of the disturbing questions. Old-timers have viewed with some concern the gradual dwindling of the male contingent in the as- sociation. At present women dominate by sheer numbers and they stand strongly for representation in proportion to their nu- merical strength and in accord with the great work they are do- ing in the class room. While the men openly recognize women's great work with the pupils of the country, they feel, at the same time, that certain problems confront the N. E. A. which would be better met if men were in control. Of such masculine prob- lems, one is that of getting through Congress, House Bill Num- ber 7, which provides, among other things, for a secretary of edu- cation in the President's cabinet; corresponding, for instance, to our secretary of agriculture. There are other important and de- sirable plans of a similar nature. This undercurrent of dissatisfaction with feminine domin- ance was not openly expressed on the convention floor at Mil- waukee, but in hotel lobbies and in restaurants one frequently heard some man remark: "Well, if the women are going to swamp us in this way, I simply will not come to the N. E. A." Nor are the men coming in as large numbers as formerly. In- stead, the superintendents' section, held in the winter, is increas- ingly becoming the men's N. E. A.; the summer session, the women's N. E. A. To the credit of Mrs. Preston, the president- elect, be it said that she refused to run for the office unless she could be assured of the support of the men. Will the influ- ential women continue that precedent or will the question of THE FUTURE OF THE N. E. A. 981 sex split the N. E. A.? The women of the organization have the power to say yes or no. The responsibility is also theirs. Another source of disunity in the N. E. A. is the wide differ- ence in the nature of the problems confronting educators from the various parts of the country. Each section is interested in getting light on its local difficulties. Therefore a state that has not a single crossroads rural school house is unwilling to send its delegates on a long, hot, dirty trip to a distant hot city in order that said delegation may listen to a thirty-minute paper on the problem of the rural school. Does not Mary Jones of Prairie View, Illinois, deserve as good a teacher as Sally Twelve-Story of Chicago? That question is vital to the school master of Illi- nois, but not to the teachers of Utah or Arizona. Nor are the teachers of New York excited by a paper on recent legislation in Texas for free text books, a condition enjoyed by New York- ers for many years. Unless the N. E. A. gets at this difficulty, the organization will break into fragments representing states of common inter- ests. Already frequent mention is made of a Western Division. This would be unfortunate, for there are problems of education facing the whole nation that ought to be presented to the edu- cators as a whole and discussed by them together. The problem, for instance, of developing a finer and more unified national pa- triotism is one that can well be laid before all the teachers of America assembled in mass. It seems possible to do this and at the same time divide the body into groups that would make local sectional discussions pertinent to the delegates. If the N. E. A. is to live as one body, this problem must be vigorously attacked. Even more serious dangers threaten this great teachers' as- sociation. Radical educational theories were popular in the Mil- waukee N. E. A. Reconstruction was the slogan of the conven- tion. Our educational system must be reconstructed, was the cry. Very well. But in our zeal to get at a few deficiencies, let us not forget that in the main our schools have been all right. The war did, to be sure, reveal a degree of illiteracy of the extent of which we were ignorant; but the war also revealed that the product of our schools, the American soldier, was a magnificent product. This fact needs emphasis. We had builded even bet- ter than we knew. So that in our anxiety to dig new channels of education let us not dam the old ones which, as recent events have proved, carried the pure and undefiled waters of education. In this field, as in politics, we must broaden down slowly from precedent to precedents, as Tennyson aptly put it. If the N. E. A. would enjoy long life, it must travel a conservatively progressive road. One could wish the Milwaukee N. E. A. had emphasized this proposition: Let us hold fast in our schools to that which 982 IMPROVEMENT ERA has been proved good by the world crisis it has weathered. That which has stood the test must remain the foundation for all our building. This radical impulse should not be taken too seriously, per- haps. It may simply have been the Yankee tendency to say, "Play ball" when we mean simply, play better ball, rather than an entirely new game. Yet the danger involved calls for at least a passing caution. It remained for Professor Albert Feuillerat of France to take the sane educational stand of the convention in this particular regard. "We realize in France," said he, "that we must amend our educational system if we are to maintain that share in the world's affairs to which our part in the war entitles us. But we shall not lose sight, in our zeal for reform, of the old educa- tional principles that enabled the French soldiers * * * to overcome the * * * spirit of the Hun. Rather than forego the culture that was driven into the French character by the study of the old humanities we would vote, in France, to be swept away by the materialistic hordes from beyond the Rhine. But holding fast to the old, we must now branch out in this direction and that from the main trunk." This statement was the distinguished Frenchman's warning to American radi- calism in the National Education Association. No doubt the reminder will be sufficient. But there was a form of radicalism which appeared at Mil- waukee that looks dangerous for the N. E. A. In fact, Bolshev- ism reared a menacing head there. If true, this fact should alarm all the educators of America. Margaret Haley of Chicago, as keen and clever a debater as ever took the floor, succeeded in preventing the reorganization of the N. E. A. upon a representative basis; i. e., one representative to go to the convention for every one hundred teachers. The leading educators present thought, that such a plan would insure a better representation at the N. E. A. than has been the case, just as the representative system assures a stronger body in the halls of Congress than would prevail if every citizen of the United States had a right to go but no one in particular were sent. What kind of Congress should we have under such a con- dition? Would it be efficient? Now Margaret Haley blocked the N. E. A.'s effort to get on the representative basis. She won her point on the ground that reorganization was illegal in that the N. E. A. charter does not grant such power. Margaret Haley was right. The other side had blundered pitifully, for they ought to have informed themselves upon that point. Miss Haley did the N. E. A. a service by putting it right on the legal- ity score. But above the question of her being right in this particular, THE FUTURE OF THE N. 2. A. 983 looms the nasty fact that she had packed the hall with teachers from Chicago whom she brought to the convention hall on the eve of the N. E. A. business meeting. Wild^eyed Mary O'Reilly was one of them. She spoke a number of times; she disliked the word "class" and the word "representative;" she loves the words "mass" and "numbers." She wants nice educational prob- lems determined by a rising vote. Margaret Haley had a goodly number of Mary O'Reillys with her. In addition one or two whiskered American educational Trotsky's rallied to her lead- ership. Margaret Haley led a dignified debate, but her Marys could not conceal their mobocratic animus. All could easily see, therefore, that underneath this apparently harmless legality victory was something sinister. They were in reality fighting representative organization on the part of the TN". E. A. They are antagonistic indeed to the whole representative idea. They recognize no class in educa- tion based on quality. They would have numbers rule. Mary O'Reilly would be just as potent in shaping educational policies as is the most highly trained person in the N. E. A. Mary O'Reilly would represent Mary O'Reilly in the convention. Margaret Haley won for Mary in Milwaukee. The N. E. A. is not to be reorganized until a committee has had Congress put the legal right to do so into the N. E. A. charter. When that is done, what will happen? If the course of the N. E. A. is to be determined by the count of heads this great organization is facing a serious crisis. For the Margaret Haleys of America will see to it that O'Reilly heads predominate if it may be done. Many persons think that Margaret's next step will be an attempt to affiliate the N. E. A. with the labor unions. Her own band of teachers already has its union number. Unless her career in the association be checked, that affiliation will be accomplished within the next few years. Whence she is headed now is perfectly clear. The final success of her propaganda would bring Bolshevism into the public schools of America, a consummation devoutly to be avoided. We should not over-estimate the danger and get alarmed; neither should we ignore it and fail to act until the menace has become formidable, as it might easily do. A class of young ministers, upon being sent from the sem- inary out into the field to preach, was given this final advice by the dean :"Take a strong stand against evil. See to it that you do the devil some definite damage." That duty is now upon the shoulders of the conservative educators of America. The devil of Bolshevism must be chained. The struggle will be, for one place, in the N. E. A. of the near future. If the devil wins, the N. E. A. and America will be in a dilemma.