Portland, Oregon, to entertain the N. E. A
NEWS AND COMMENT.
For the first time in its history the National Education Convention is this year to be held in the Northwest. The association will meet at Portland, Oregon, July 7 to 14th. The United States Weather Bureau says that Portland has the best summer climate in the United States. It is rare that the thermometer in that city climbs above 75 degrees in summer, and always the people of the state of Oregon sleep under blankets. Summer days are bright and warm. Oregon gets its rain in winter.
Portland makes a fine base for a summer of sight-seeing in the Northwest. It is close to the seashore, while within a few hours travel are Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens and famous Mt. Hood. To the north are Ranier National Park, easily reached in a day by automobile, the Georgian Circuit around Puget Sound, Snoqualmie Falls, Victoria, and Vancouver. Portland’s saw mills and ship building yards are to be open to visitors. During the convention the committee will hold the annual Rose Carnival for the benefit of visiting teachers. Good hotel rates are guaranteed by the Portland General Committee, of which Superintendent L. R. Alderman is chairman. Room reservations should be made to the Portland General Committee, Mark Woodruff, Secretary, or through the Chamber of Commerce of that city.
Portland, Oregon, is already organized with a view to making the 1917 session of the National Education Association the most successful in its history. It is the ambition of Superintendent Alderman to identify the interests of the thousands from East, South, and Middle West with those of the people of the Northwest. Mr. Alderman is planning committees on joint excursions over the Columbia Highway, through Oregon’s big timber and along the crest of mountains overlooking the beautiful lake region. Excursions also will be made to the various state educational institutions that are rapidly coming to the front rank.
The University of Oregon has announced that its summer school will run three weeks before, and three weeks following the N. E. A. Oregon Agricultural College, the Oregon Normal School, the University of Washington, the University of Idaho, the three Washington Normal Schools and two Idaho Normal Schools, all with summer sessions, surround Portland on the various railway lines entering the city. Some of the historic endowed colleges, such as Whitman, and Willamette, and the new but famous Reed College, will join the state institutions in vying for the opportunity to welcome the visitors, and to profit by the coming of the nation’s educators to Oregon. The N. E. A. will come in July in time to assist in the celebration of the completion of one of the greatest bridges in the world, the interstate span connecting Oregon and Washington at Vancouver, and forming a link in the Pacific Highway, connecting Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. Leading Educators Organize for Physical Training in Public Schools. Adopting as its slogan President Wilson’s recent statement that “physical training is needed but can be had without compulsory military service,” a committee of leading educators has been formed to urge the adoption, in the various states, of a model state bill, drafted by Dr Dudley A. Sargent of Harvard, providing for the introduction of physical training, without military features, in the public schools. The new committee, which bears the title of “The Committee for Promoting Physical Education in the Public Schools of the United States,” has opened headquarters in the Munsey building in Washington, D. C., with Mrs. Harriet P. Thomas as secretary in charge.
In its announcement the committee says, in part: “We believe that the time has come when the public schools can, and should, enter deliberately and purposefully upon a definite plan for the preparation of our youth physically for the exigencies of life and for all the demands of citizenship. We need to spend more money and more time upon physical training intended to develop the body so that both boys and girls may be prepared equally for the pursuits of peace or the vicissitudes of war.”
The bill is officially entitled “a bill to upbuild national vitality through the establishment of physical education and training in the public schools of the state.” It is described as a tentative draft which may be easily modified to meet the varying financial and educational conditions in the different states. Its proponents are careful to assert that they are not intending to impose an “elaborate and expensive machinery” upon any state,?merely to indicate the way to begin in the belief that public opinion has now been educated to the point where it will support physical training in the schools when that training is shorn of military features.
The bill, with suitable modifications, has been introduced in the Massachusetts General Assembly (by special consent) and in the legislatures of California and Indiana. Its introduction in other states is expected to follow shortly. A Correction.
On page 233 of the January number of The Psychological Clinic occurs a statement concerning the treatment of feebleminded women in New York State. This statement is included in a clinical lecture given by me and reported by the Recorder of the Psychological Clinic. A graduate student, a member of the class to which I was lecturing, made this statement, or something like it, and the Recorder, through a misunderstanding, reported it as part of my lecture. I have the best of reasons for believing the facts not to be true, as Dr Ethan A. Nevin, of the State Custodial Asylum at Newark, N. Y., writes me that they are very far from representing the true situation. I regret to say that I did not notice the statement until my attention was called to it by Dr. Nevin.
Lightner Witmer.
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