Parents And Teachers - A Survey Of Organized Cooperation Of Home School And Community

PARENTS AND TEACHERS A SURVEY OF ORGANIZED COOPERATION OF HOME, SCHOOL, AND COMMUNITY PREPARED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE NATIONAL CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS AND EDITED BY MARTHA SPRAGUE MASON GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON ATLANTA DALLAS COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO ALICE McLELLAN BIRNEY Founder and first president of the National Congress of Mothers, now known as the National Congress of Parents and Teachers COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY GINN AND COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 528.6 Stfituitum te PREFACE The parent-teacher movement in the United States has been developing for more than thirty years. Its growth has been so steady and so healthy that co operation of home, school, church, and community has now taken its place as a powerful factor in modern education. Several state universities have published valuable guides to parent-teacher workers, many educators and members have written helpful articles for magazines and for parent-teacher state bulletins, and there are a few books based on the home-and-school idea. A great amount of literature in pamphlet form has been pub lished by the National Congress of Parents and Teachers and a lesser amount by the United States Bureau of Education, but as yet there has been no general summary in book form of the movement as it is now organized in the United States. There has come to the National Congress of Parents and Teachers a threefold demand for a comprehen sive treatment of the origin, purposes, and accom plishments of parent-teacher associations first, from state, county, and local superintendents of schools second, from colleges, state universities, and normal schools and third, from a largenumber of parents Vi PARENTS AND TEACHERS and teachers who have been called to leadership in national, state, or local associations, and who feel the need of information and guidance. The editor of this book, acting for the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, has undertaken, with the assistance of her committee, to bring together from authoritative sources such facts as may partially meet the demands. The wealth of resources from which material may be drawn is inexhaustible, but it has been impossible to go into the details of any special departments of the work. For the benefit of students, however, references to books, pamphlets, and programs relating to the parent-teacher move ment are given in bibliographies to be found in the five chapters of Part I and in the Appendix. Part I is in the nature of a prelude to Part II. It shows, first, what education is and second, it elabo rates the four great factors which contribute to the education of an individual and which the parent teacher movement is seeking to unite. Its five chap ters have been written by educators who have had wide experience and are nationally known. Professor Henry C. Morrison of the Department of Education, Chicago University, has written the first chapter, u Principles of Education Miss Sarah Louise Arnold, dean emerita of Simmons College and national pres ident of the Girl Scouts, the second chapter, u Con tribution of the Home to Education Dr. Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education of Massachusetts, PREFACE vii the third chapter, Contribution of the School to Education 7 Mr. Joseph Lee, president of the Play ground and Recreation Association of America, the fourth chapter, Contribution of the Community toEducation and Dr. Luther A. Weigle, Sterling Professor of Religious Education, Yale University, the fifth chapter, Contribution of Religion to Education 7 To those who want to learn the educational sig nificance of the parent-teacher movement as an agency seeking to unify, coordinate, and harmonize all the factors which are helping to develop the life of the child, the chapters of Part I will serve as a valuable introduction to Part II...