; T 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form LI 
 
 Library 
 

 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 APR 5 84* 
 
 MAY 1 3 1955 
 
 Form L-9-13/i-8.'24
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 
 
 AND A HALF-CENTURY OF THE 
 CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
 
 By courtesy of Chicago Normal College 
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 
 From the portrait by Louis Betts in the Chicago Art Institute
 
 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 And a Half- Century of the 
 Chicago Public Schools 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN T. McMANIS, Ph.D. 
 
 PORTRAITS, ETC. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 1916
 
 Copyright 
 
 A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 1916 
 
 Published September, 1916 
 
 W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO
 
 Education 
 Library 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 difficulties encountered in writing the life of 
 another are more than technical difficulties. To 
 interpret the spirit so as to make it common property 
 requires sympathy, grasp, and insight, balanced with a 
 judgment of values that is rare in all of us. In the 
 case of Mrs. Young the difficulties are particularly 
 great. Almost no help in such an undertaking can be 
 derived directly from her or from her immediate 
 friends. In the one case, her interest is in her work 
 and not in herself, making it impossible to secure per- 
 sonal touches needed to understand the meaning of her 
 acts; in the other, friends are jealous of relationships 
 and guard them closely. Many persons, however, have 
 placed their best efforts into this work and made it pos- 
 sible to write her life. To such I am under the greatest 
 obligation and should like to acknowledge their sym- 
 pathetic and invaluable help. 
 
 It must be evident that the worth of any benefactor 
 of the race is to be found in the principles for which he 
 has stood rather than in merely personal facts and pecul- 
 iarities. I have endeavored to write of the forces and 
 the interests for which Mrs. Young has labored, and 
 only secondarily of the persons who have worked with 
 her. If I have succeeded, in any measure, in the following 
 pages in showing the strength and the human effective- 
 ness of Ella Flagg Young, it is due more to a sympathy 
 for her efforts for the children of Chicago than to any 
 other qualification. "Institutions are but the length-
 
 Preface 
 
 ened shadows of great men," and it is to the institutions 
 that we must look for the test of the part played by 
 each human being. Judged by this test, Mrs. Young 
 should have a high place among those who have 
 touched the bonds of ignorance and tradition and loos- 
 ened the spirits of the youth of a great city. Her real 
 biography is written in the hearts of those with whom 
 she has striven to make the public schools democratic 
 in reality and truth. 
 
 J. T. McM. 
 
 JUNE, 1916.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I A HALF-CENTURY OF CHANGE i 
 
 II EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION 15 
 
 III TEACHING SCHOOL FIFTY YEARS AGO .... 29 
 
 IV EARLY TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN CHICAGO AND 
 
 MRS. YOUNG'S PART IN IT 44 
 
 V A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF BUILDING A CITY 
 
 SCHOOL 56 
 
 VI SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION FROM 1887 TO 1899 AS 
 
 SHOWN IN THE WORK OF MRS. YOUNG . . 73 
 
 VII A CLASH OF IDEALS IN SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 87 
 
 VIII HIGHER EDUCATION FOR A WOMAN PAST FIFTY 101 
 
 IX ADMINISTRATION OF THE CITY NORMAL SCHOOL 123 
 
 X REORGANIZING A TIME-HONORED INSTITUTION 144 
 
 XI DEMOCRACY AND THE SUPERINTENDENCY OF 
 
 CHICAGO SCHOOLS 156 
 
 XII MAKING OVER A CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM . . .175 
 
 XIII C-H-I-C-A-G-O SPELLS OPPORTUNITY .... 200 
 
 XIV ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 212 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 I ELLA FLAGG YOUNG'S WRITINGS AND ADDRESSES 227 
 II COURSES IN THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN 
 
 1861 AND IN 1916 228
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG Frontispiece 
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG WHEN SHE BEGAN TEACHING . . 30 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG WHEN PRINCIPAL OF PRACTICE 
 
 SCHOOL 30 
 
 THE OLD BROWN SCHOOL 42 
 
 SKINNER PUBLIC SCHOOL 70 
 
 CHICAGO NORMAL COLLEGE 124 
 
 THE CARTER H. HARRISON TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL . 156 
 CARPENTER APPRENTICES IN THE LANE TECHNICAL 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL 184 
 
 THE WILLIAM W. CARTER SCHOOL 202 
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 214
 
 flra. fjowtg'a 
 
 Those who live on the mountain have a 
 longer day than those who live in the valley. 
 Sometimes all we need to brighten our day 
 is to climb a little higher.
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A HALF-CENTURY OF CHANGE 
 
 'T^HE life story of Ella Flagg Young requires its 
 - background of events and forces in which she has 
 lived and wrought. The half-century since the Civil 
 War in America is fraught with social, economic, intel- 
 lectual, and educational transformations. Contempo- 
 rary with such changes, Mrs. Young has labored in the 
 public schools of Chicago. More than is usually given 
 to one person, she has actively influenced the course of 
 these changes in the Middle West. Since an account of 
 her life that neglected the educational and social history 
 of the time would be unintelligible, a brief survey of 
 conditions which have obtained in American cities and 
 in Chicago in particular must precede the attempt to 
 trace her life or to estimate her achievements as a 
 teacher and educational leader. 
 
 Nothing is more significant in all this period than 
 the growth of cities. Chicago has sprung from com- 
 paratively a village to a metropolis covering almost an 
 entire county and occupying second position in size 
 among American cities. From east and west, north 
 and south, populations have poured into the close con- 
 fines of the city. Older lands across the sea have so 
 emptied their people into tenements that some of 
 the centers of foreign populations in our cities are
 
 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 greater than the capitals of the fatherland. A babel 
 of tongues meets us wherever we turn, and a city school 
 may contain more than two score nationalities and 
 races. 
 
 It is difficult to realize the far-reaching significance 
 of a transformation of peoples from rural to urban 
 conditions, especially when this takes place within the 
 lifetime of workers in the fields of public service. Of 
 this growth of Chicago no one has been a keener stu- 
 dent than Mrs. Young. It has fascinated her. One 
 question has been in her mind for many years: "How 
 can the school fuse all these diverse elements so as to 
 produce the unity essential to a democracy?" Greater 
 efforts seem to have been made toward coining alluring 
 phrases than toward sober thinking of how to bring 
 about a union into a harmonious whole of this mass of 
 people dwelling in the closest physical proximity, but 
 separated by gulfs of racial traditions, standards, and 
 prejudices, institutional forms and practices, and per- 
 sonal interests. Against the actual difficulties of bring- 
 ing about an amalgamation, few leaders have been able 
 to fight and still retain their faith in the ultimate tri- 
 umph of popular control of institutions. To call the 
 public school a "melting pot," for instance, as Mrs. 
 Young unweariedly reiterates, is to miss the essence of 
 the matter in reducing these elements to a democracy. 
 That end can only be attained by spreading intelligence 
 and a sense of responsibility for the control of the 
 social whole. 
 
 How few men and women have realized their oppor- 
 tunities of aiding the growth of a social solidarity in 
 cities is shown by the readiness with which they have
 
 A Half-Century of Change 
 
 been drawn into narrower fields of personal gain and 
 individual aggrandizement. A character, therefore, 
 like that of Mrs. Young stands out conspicuously 
 against this background of individualism and self- 
 seeking. 
 
 Connected intimately with this growth of cities has 
 been the revolution in the status of women. Machin- 
 ery has transformed home life and its surroundings and 
 taken home industries of a couple of generations ago 
 to factories, thus depriving woman of her share in the 
 world's work. Contrary to the accepted belief that 
 woman has followed these industries out into the world, 
 Mrs. Young pointed out in an address before the 
 National Education Association in 1915 that 
 
 The work has been taken from her, but she is not doing it in the 
 world outside the home. We teach girls sewing, we teach them 
 cooking. Do they go out into the world and manage the great 
 restaurants, the kitchens of the great hotels? Certainly not. 
 Men cook in the large establishments. And so with sewing. 
 Girls are taught to sew. But if you or I want a tailor-made 
 dress, we look around and find a man to make it. Even in the 
 exercise of the two occupations which industrial education 
 assigns to woman as hers by unquestionable right, she is not 
 permitted to follow her work out into the world. There are 
 some lines of designing and millinery to which she is admitted, 
 but after all, in the great industrial world woman seems to have 
 nothing to do, excepting to wrap bundles and address them, 
 to make boxes, and to do small things like that. 
 
 But occupations are now open to woman not known a 
 half-century ago. When Mrs. Young began her work, 
 teaching was the only profession accessible to woman, 
 and even that was new to her. Freedom of women for 
 self-support in industry and in professions has been 
 developed in this generation.
 
 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 From scattering agitations by "Blue Stockings" in 
 1862 for the rights of women to full-fledged voters at 
 the close of a half-century marks a progress of events 
 hardly surpassed in any other period in the history of 
 America. Legal restrictions following social and con- 
 ventional restrictions have been removed and woman 
 has been given the position of a self-directing person 
 in the state. A life cast within this period of history 
 has been compelled to readjust itself to an ever-shift- 
 ing social valuation of the place and importance of 
 women, and such has been the history of the life of 
 Mrs. Young. 
 
 Not only has the entire fabric of economic and social 
 life undergone a revolution during this period, but the 
 status of children has likewise been transformed. In 
 changing from rural to urban homes, child life met the 
 reverse fate of that of woman. In the country the 
 child was free to come and go and to do his "chores" 
 of farm life, but in the city he has lost the wholesome 
 duties and outdoor activity and has been bound by hard 
 conditions of city life. Servitude in the South, while 
 more spectacular as a principle to fight against, was no 
 more a crime upon the heart of a nation than the rush 
 of industrialism of the city to subjugate childhood to 
 spindle and machine. 
 
 During the last half-century the doctrine of " rights 
 of children" has been written in this country. In the 
 fight to free children from early labor and to give them 
 free opportunities for education, one legal act after 
 another was necessary. And the transformation in the 
 legal rights of children has been wrought mainly 
 through a sympathy for childhood and an understand-
 
 A Half-Century of Change 
 
 ing of its needs that did not exist before. The first 
 swing of the pendulum away from the rod as an educa- 
 tional method carried to a freedom amounting to 
 license. In the meantime, however, an insight into the 
 needs of childhood brought play, constructive work, 
 and motor outlets as food on which children are to 
 grow to strength of manhood and womanhood. We 
 no longer permit "the lash on the tender bodies of 
 growing children," nor do we turn them out to their 
 own devices to run wild at pleasure. Our playground, 
 community garden, and school shop and gymnasium 
 provide for the demands of growing boys and girls. 
 
 No pen can picture this growth in democracy, in 
 humanity, and in intelligence of the sentiment for chil- 
 dren that has sprung into existence during a brief half- 
 century. Parents doubtless loved their children as 
 much then as now and were often as intelligent in their 
 treatment. But they did not see children as social 
 assets and did not treat them from the point of view 
 of this social relationship. In proportion as the home 
 has been compelled to surrender to the factory its 
 place in the industry of the world, its power over the 
 control and education of children has been surrendered 
 to the school and other agencies of the state. With this 
 surrender" of children has come the appreciation of a 
 broader civic view of the individual. He belongs to 
 society, to the state, to humanity, and only indirectly 
 to the narrow bounds of his own individual demands. 
 Emphasis upon bodily health and efficiency, upon order, 
 upon morality and intelligence, has changed from indi- 
 vidual health and morality and intelligence to social 
 efficiency and service. "All children must be in the
 
 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 public schools, the schools provided by society for its 
 own necessities," says Mrs. Young. During her half- 
 century of teaching she learned this lesson from changes 
 wrought by the life of the city. 
 
 In the light of the history of the status of children in 
 cities during the past generation it is clear that city life 
 falls most heavily upon the shoulders of the young. 
 fThe highly technical principles of business and industry 
 on the one hand, and mechanical processes forced upon 
 operatives by modern machinery on the other, crush the 
 child as between an upper and nether millstone. Com- 
 pulsory school regulations have served mainly to post- 
 pone the entrance of the individual into this chaos of 
 occupations and interests. Instead of merely raising 
 the age of turning children loose to become a prey of 
 modern industrialism, the demand is growing for 
 direct and comprehensive training in the processes, the 
 demands, and the possibilities of life. 
 
 But a democracy of education and culture that meets 
 the demands of such modern conditions is a recent 
 growth. Fifty years ago it was a vision of the far- 
 sighted, written into constitutions and declarations, but 
 unborn in its applications to the needs of all classes and 
 types of children. Unheralded, academic and scholas- 
 tic ideals of education have been gradually giving place 
 to ideals of caring for and training all classes in all 
 lines of human endeavor. Such a change, commensurate 
 with the upheavals in social and industrial life, is of 
 slow growth. The theory is spreading and becoming 
 fact that the school shall become shop, laboratory, 
 miniature state, agricultural experiment station, office, 
 manufacturing plant, industrial center, social organism,
 
 A Half-Century of Change 
 
 center of domestic activity, in fact, all things that men 
 and women find it necessary to study and become 
 expert in handling. 
 
 Schools can no longer be the silent halls of dark and 
 mysterious book lore for the few, as they were a gener- 
 ation ago, but are to become living, striving social 
 groups where the young learn the parts they are best 
 fitted to play. Avenues are opening to all classes and 
 all degrees of capacities and interests. Recognition 
 that the "Little Red School House" failed to fulfill 
 the mission proclaimed for it is generally, if vaguely, 
 accepted. When children worked alongside their par- 
 ents in home or field the three R's may have had an 
 excuse for being considered the "fundamentals" in 
 education, but even then, in view of the fact that such 
 methods ruined the soils of farms from one end of the 
 country to another, produced poor farm stock and 
 inadequate methods, and that boys and girls rushed 
 away to cities to take up unskilled or clerical and pro- 
 fessional positions, bare academic instruction evidently 
 failed to meet the needs of society. 
 
 With the idea that all classes of children should be 
 put to school has come the responsibility of providing 
 facilities and opportunities for crippled, blind, tuber- 
 cular, anemic, epileptic children, as well as for children 
 with healthy bodies and minds. A comprehensive his- 
 tory of modern education will show the dawn of this 
 appreciation of the right of each to the training that 
 best fits him to live his life in society and the consequent 
 necessity for broadening the work of the school to meet 
 such a condition. 
 
 Changes in social and economic life, in the place of
 
 8 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 women in society, in the treatment of children, and in 
 the educational institutions of this period are paralleled 
 by a transformation of the status of teachers in the 
 public schools and of the ideal of what teachers should 
 be. Trained teachers, regarded now as essential fix- 
 tures in the school, have not always been thought nec- 
 essary. At the beginning of the period training was 
 regarded as necessary for teachers by only the very few 
 who saw the failures resulting from ignorant and 
 careless teaching. 
 
 Through the tireless efforts of this minority of great 
 leaders the city organized a normal school so as to pre- 
 pare young women to teach. When, at a later time, 
 this school was closed by political influences, the ideal 
 for which it stood was not lost. After the closing of 
 this school, teachers were, for a number of years, 
 selected from high-school graduates who, of course, 
 had not been trained in teaching. Though it was evi- 
 dent that this practice was inadequate, several years 
 intervened before another attempt to train teachers 
 was made by the city. In the history of this movement, 
 therefore, there has been no uniform practice. The 
 result has been that at some times more trained teachers 
 were available than could be used in the schools, while 
 at others the schools were clamoring even for substi- 
 tutes. The practice of drawing teachers from outside 
 communities through examinations has been a common 
 one, but that, too, has never given an adequate supply. 
 The normal school of recent years has been crowded 
 with young people training for service in the schools, 
 and the professional standard has been continually 
 advancing.
 
 A Half -Century of Change 
 
 Specialization of work in teaching has been going on 
 increasingly and will doubtless continue. Very recently 
 a plan of selecting men and women from the trades to 
 teach special industrial processes has been practiced. 
 Encouragement of ambitious teachers by offering in- 
 ducements for further study and preparation is also 
 found in Chicago. Adequate preparation and advance- 
 ment of teachers in the professional spirit have been 
 questions of great concern to leaders in education. For 
 a half-century Mrs. Young puzzled over this problem. 
 Her special interest always lay in securing the best 
 teaching for the children of the city, and this she real- 
 ized could only be had where life and energy, backed 
 up by training, found expression in the teacher. 
 
 Far from being unorganized individuals as they were 
 fifty years ago, teachers have come to represent a highly 
 organized community. They have come to feel that 
 they have interests in common. With this feeling has 
 come a sense of responsibility to society not felt a few 
 years ago. Furthermore, they are now demanding 
 the standing in society which belongs to them in their 
 important work. iVfrs. Young has been so aetive in 
 both the professional training of teachers and the fos- 
 tering of community spirit among them that she has 
 involved herself in many fights at great sacrifices to 
 herself. Among the forces controlling the public 
 schools, none is more important than organized teach- 
 ers. Such organization has made impossible the thrusts 
 aimed at individual teachers in times past At the same 
 time, teachers' interests have come to be quite clearly 
 identified by the public with the interests of the schools, 
 and attacks on them must be by way of subterfuge.
 
 io Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Through organization and through cooperation and 
 contribution to common causes, the teacher has become 
 a force in determining public policy both inside and 
 outside the schools. It is this change, unrealized by 
 many in the city, that has precipitated the conflict be- 
 tween school management and teachers during the past 
 few years. Such friction will doubtless continue until 
 people generally estimate justly, on the one hand, the 
 genuine allegiance of teachers to the interests of chil- 
 dren, and on the other, the sham professions of politi- 
 cians and representatives of private interests seeking 
 to control the schools through representation on politi- 
 cally constituted school boards. 
 
 All these changes in institutions and practices have 
 been wrought through much opposition. Government 
 by the people has not always furnished most effective 
 results. It was fondly hoped by the founders of the 
 public schools that the people should receive in them 
 the rudiments of training necessary for all practical 
 purposes. With the growth of cities and complex mod- 
 ern demands the problems of such training have grown 
 far beyond the conceptions of the founders. Every 
 change in school work and school organization has 
 been so bitterly fought that effectiveness of teaching 
 has been very seriously retarded and even menaced. 
 Educational history for the past half-hundred years, 
 therefore, has been a continuous fight for a broadening 
 of the school, a liberalizing of its methods, and an 
 emancipation of its teachers. 
 
 Art, science, and nature study have literally pushed 
 their way into the schools. The graded system, opposed 
 strenuously as an innovation, was, when once adopted,
 
 A Half-Century of Change 1 1 
 
 fought in turn because of its iron grip on school organi- 
 zation. It has already been made clear that profes- 
 sional training of teachers and organization of teachers 
 have met antagonism. In the same way the movement 
 for vocational education has encountered this fire of 
 opposition. "Cultural" and "practical," as applied 
 to education, have been words to conjure with for many 
 a year, and the fight still goes on with parties lined up 
 on two sides demanding concessions of the schools. All 
 sorts of forces are found combined to fight progress or 
 change in any direction, sometimes within and some- 
 times without the school. 
 
 In Illinois, during the past few years, this wrangle 
 has been going merrily on. Vocational schools, modeled 
 on those of Germany, run as separate institutions, are 
 urged upon the people. Opposed to this plan stands 
 the work of the schools as they exist, with a demand for 
 the broadening of their facilities to meet industrial 
 needs. One of these plans is called "dual," undemo- 
 cratic, and un-American, while the other is proclaimed 
 a "unit" system, and democratic because it keeps all 
 the children in one set of schools. In reference to this 
 scheme, Mrs. Young said in one of her reports: 
 
 The difference between the prevocational classes and that 
 proposed by the manufacturers in a bill offered in the state leg- 
 islature in 1913, lies not in the degree of skill acquired but in 
 the appeal to spirit. When the fourteen to sixteen-year-old 
 children of the working classes are cut off from everything in 
 education except that which bears directly on shop work, the 
 life, the character of the American workman will lose the stimu- 
 lus that comes through the humanities. All our classes pre- 
 vocational, apprentice, and vocational are breathing the breath 
 of life in schools where skill and science are well taught, not,
 
 12 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 however, for personal or trade ends only, but in an atmosphere 
 in which an industrial career is dignified as an element in the 
 social movement of the American people. 
 
 A summary of this antagonism to progress will 
 reveal that its forces have been of two sorts : tradition- 
 alism on the one hand, and special or political interests 
 on the other. Traditionalism in one form or another 
 has acted as a drag on the wheels of progress. Both 
 within and without the schools this force has thwarted 
 efforts to improve educational practice and discredited 
 suggestions as "theoretical." The most fatal form of 
 traditionalism has been a narrow academic interpre- 
 tation of education. Advances in work, for example, 
 to improve English teaching, to introduce nature study, 
 art, song-singing, and whatever has given life to chil- 
 dren, have met traditional teaching as an almost insur- 
 mountable obstacle. Doubtless everyone can recognize 
 the difficulty of bringing a great body of teachers and 
 principals, educated under a past regime of scholastic 
 and academic discipline, to meet the demands of a 
 changing and a scientific age. 
 
 Inertia and reactionism of society, and of teachers 
 in particular, are formidable foes to progress; but 
 active special interests, represented by our political sys- 
 tem, must be reckoned as more formidable foes. The 
 fight that has been waged over school matters in Ameri- 
 can education for fifty years has in no small measure 
 come from the demands of special and selfish interests. 
 Intrenched in our political system, they dominate boards 
 of education. Power is placed, either by election or 
 appointment, in the hands of a body of " representa- 
 tive" men and women, and with this body rests the
 
 A Half -Century of Change 13 
 
 welfare of the schools. One of the interesting facts 
 in the psychology of the ordinary American is that no 
 public problems are too difficult or too technical for 
 him to undertake. Accordingly, during the past, one 
 board has introduced a number of innovations and the 
 next has swept all these aside with the contemptuous 
 designation of " fads." Lack of training in educa- 
 tional matters on the part of the board is surpassed 
 only by too great expertness in the field of city politics. 
 Though school boards have grown smaller in size 
 of late years in many cities, in the more cosmopolitan 
 centers they are still far too large for effectiveness, and 
 are composed of representatives of various nationalities 
 powerful in the city, and of various special or insti- 
 tutional interests business, religious, and political. 
 When such " influences " bring about appointments, it 
 follows that these will serve first the forces which put 
 them there, and secondarily, the schools. It is known 
 both within and outside the teaching body that no 
 matter how needful or how beneficial some proposed 
 educational policy may be a textbook to be adopted, 
 the teaching of some particular subject, the purchase of 
 equipment for a school, the selection of a site for a 
 school building, the fashioning of a school budget, or 
 the appointment of some subordinate administrative 
 officer it must run the gauntlet of special interests 
 irrespective of its merits for the schools. A board so 
 constituted compels a superintendent to be a politician. 
 He must know when to push matters and when to let 
 them drop; must know which forces are to be appeased 
 and which to be ignored; must, in a word, be able to 
 lead the issues through the agency of men without
 
 14 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 special intelligence in respect to schools but at the same 
 time creatures of many interests. 
 
 In the light of the tremendous revolution in social 
 and economic life during this period, any weakening of 
 men and women through pressure of tradition and 
 politics is destructive to progress. To keep education 
 abreast of the times, even under the best conditions, re- 
 quires constructive genius of a high order. In no line 
 of work has it taken greater strength of character, 
 keener intelligence, more adept management, and 
 greater sacrifice of self-interest than it has to teach and 
 administer the public schools of great cities in this 
 country. The same amount of talent and investment in 
 training in any other line of business would doubtless 
 have made many men and women more noted in the 
 community and given them greater ease than that found 
 in teaching. That Mrs. Young has been content to 
 work for the children of the city and devote all her 
 power to that one problem regardless of personal gain, 
 is a mark of a spirit of unselfishness unsurpassed. The 
 great army of men and women with whom she has 
 worked have for the most part sustained the same en- 
 during and far-reaching devotion to the welfare of the 
 young of Chicago and other communities. Their work 
 has gradually brought the dawn of a new day for boys 
 and girls of the city. In the half-century of Mrs. 
 Young's work the world of childhood has gained an 
 importance commensurate with its value to the state, 
 and the life given to this work is worthy a place with 
 the statesmen of the world.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION 
 
 ^T^HAT " life prepares her actors behind the scenes " 
 -* is peculiarly true of the early life of Ella Flagg 
 Young. Born in Buffalo, New York, January 15, 1845, 
 the daughter of a mechanic, her early years a continual 
 fight for life, Ella Flagg gave little promise of becom- 
 ing the leading woman educator of her time in America 
 and the world. She was the youngest of three children, 
 of whom one was a boy. The eldest was quickest of 
 wit and a ready observer of everything in her environ- 
 ment. The boy was a healthy, sturdy youth with a 
 remarkable aptitude for sketching and illustrating with 
 the pencil. Ella was a delicate child and grew up know- 
 ing little of other children. Her mother said that her 
 chief aim was to make Ella as well and happy as 
 fresh air and sunshine would help to make a delicate 
 little girl. 
 
 The home in which she grew up was an inconspicuous 
 American home of the highest type, simple and whole- 
 some, a place where freedom and self-control were 
 practiced and taught. From the beginning she was 
 accustomed to the religious, social, and intellectual 
 advantages that go with the culture and the refinement 
 of such a home. Her people were Presbyterians. But 
 tolerance and liberality found a conspicuous place in 
 this home, where the father refused to accept some of 
 the rigid dogmas of the church, such as that of "pre- 
 destination." In later years Mrs. Young describes her 
 
 15
 
 1 6 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 home thus : " My mother was a religious woman, but 
 she believed that religion should not be so strict as to 
 drive young or old from the home in order to find 
 amusements." For this reason, card-playing, dancing, 
 theater-going, and reading books of the day were per- 
 mitted and encouraged by her parents. To the spirit 
 of tolerance thus bred in her, Mrs. Young undoubtedly 
 owes much of her freedom from cant and dogmatism. 
 
 "Blood will tell" is a fact that makes lineage the 
 most important clue to the character of men and 
 women. Of Mrs. Young this is conspicuously so. Her 
 father and mother, Theodore and Jane Reed Flagg, 
 were of Scotch descent, though both born in America. 
 They came of a clean, hard-headed race, thrifty and 
 industrious, given to abstract and philosophic thinking. 
 Both of her parents possessed these qualities in re- 
 markable degree, and both were highly individual in 
 their characters. 
 
 That her mother came of the Highland clan of 
 Cameron is the one bit of personal pride in her history 
 of which Mrs. Young will converse freely. The mother 
 is described as a handsome woman, with a merry laugh, 
 and a readiness to assist a friend in trouble or sickness. 
 Her skill in caring for the sick was well known and she 
 was often called upon when the illness was not sufficient 
 to demand the care of a physician. Occasionally Mr. 
 Flagg remarked that it would be well for other mothers 
 to learn to care for their children when ill, and so not 
 be obliged to take his wife from her own duties and 
 increase her labors. "There is nothing strange," says 
 Mrs. Young, " in the fact that I have taken so readily 
 to practical affairs and have had ability to manage. My
 
 Early Life and Education 17 
 
 i 
 
 mother was the manager of our household, and we 
 always looked to her for guidance. She attended to 
 household finances and directed practical matters. Her 
 mind was practical and forceful in business details, and 
 from her I learned to face situations squarely." 
 
 The father was a man endowed with a keen and sen- 
 sitive mind and a thoroughly democratic spirit. An 
 only child, left an orphan in infancy, apprenticed by a 
 cousin to the sheet-metal trades, he received the train- 
 ing common to boys of his time. When the apprentice- 
 ship had been completed to within three years, the 
 youth went to his foreman and asked what extra work 
 would be received in lieu of the work of the last two 
 years of an apprenticeship. After a week's considera- 
 tion, the foreman handed him a list of the things addi- 
 tional to the work of the year then under way. He 
 laughed as if the impossible had been laid down, and 
 walked off. Day and night, out of working hours, the 
 young apprentice labored at the job and completed it, 
 thus freeing himself two years before he otherwise 
 would a full-fledged mechanic. As a man he was 
 known as the swiftest workman in the sheet metals 
 throughout the cities on the Great Lakes. 
 
 Although his life at school closed at the age of ten 
 years, he was well read in history, current affairs, and 
 science. Illustrative of his interest in reading is his 
 advice, in later years, to his daughter, on the occasion 
 of her entrance into the normal school, not to take his- 
 tory, for, he said, she could get this knowledge by her 
 own reading advice, as we shall see, that bore fruit 
 in one of her most permanent habits. Some of the 
 books which her father found time to read conflicted
 
 1 8 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 with the beliefs of his church, and, as already remarked, 
 formed one of the early recollections of Ella of relig- 
 ious discussions between her father and his friends. 
 
 His knowledge of affairs was often sought by men 
 in all lines of business. His chief strength lay in mathe- 
 matics, a capacity which was transmitted to his daugh- 
 ter. At one time in later years he did a piece of work 
 requiring great exactness in computation and in exe- 
 cution. After it was completed the firm responsible for 
 the contract became uneasy and believed that for its 
 own security the covering should be opened and exist- 
 ing conditions determined. Mr. Flagg told them it was 
 unnecessary but that if they were determined to exam- 
 ine, he wanted them to make note that they would find 
 the work done as indicated in his calculations and draw- 
 ings, and each part securely supported in its place. His 
 statement was found to be correct. 
 
 The sensitiveness of his nature was shown by the 
 effect of an unfortunate business venture. Through an 
 unprincipled partner he lost the business he had spent 
 years in building up, and this experience crushed all de- 
 sire to enter business again for himself, though on more 
 than one occasion he was urged to do so and at one 
 time was offered a partnership in a large firm of which 
 he had the management in Buffalo. 
 
 It was from him that the daughter came by a certain 
 readiness of illustration. The evening of the day when 
 she began the study of geometry, she said to him, "I 
 can't see it, and I said so in class today. The teacher 
 talked, but I couldn't see anything in what he said." 
 She then explained her difficulty, which lay in the fact 
 that every string, or thread, or even a chalk line on the
 
 Early Life and Education 19 
 
 blackboard had breadth and thickness, though the defi- 
 nition of a line stated that it had length only. Her 
 father asked, " Can you start from where you are and 
 think in a bee-line to the top of the flagstaff on the 
 courthouse ? " She then caught the bearing of the later 
 definition of a line the path of a moving point. 
 
 Through a consideration of these strains in the in- 
 heritance of Mrs. Young we are enabled to understand 
 some of the dominating traits of her character. The 
 retiring, almost shy, disposition which makes publicity 
 distasteful to her, on the one hand, and the forceful 
 handling of whatever problems meet her, on the other, 
 are characteristics most noticeable in her life. Her 
 Scottish ancestry runs through all the relations of her 
 professional and private life, makes her reticent about 
 herself and her personal affairs, gives her a keen, prac- 
 tical mind filled with a sense of humor, and, at the same 
 time, appears in her serious and relentless pursuit of an 
 idea or an issue. 
 
 As a child, she was accustomed to sit for hours watch- 
 ing her father at his work at the forge and to ask 
 questions about the processes he followed. " In this 
 way," she says, " I got an early training in handiwork 
 and industrial processes. I had manual training before 
 such things were thought of, especially for girls." So 
 well did she learn the trade of her father, with its prac- 
 tical bearings, that many years later, when she was dis- 
 trict superintendent in Chicago, she was offered the 
 management of a large manufacturing plant because, 
 as the owners said, " she knew more about its affairs 
 than anyone else." The fact that her mother and 
 father took so deep an interest in treating her in an
 
 2O Ella Flagg Young 
 
 open and frank way, and in giving her insight into what 
 they thought and did, is of itself evidence that her par- 
 ents were unusual people. The training in affairs which 
 they gave her showed itself later in her interests and 
 activities. No one is more quick to see the value of 
 this early influence than Mrs. Young herself, and her 
 loyalty to the memory of her parents is a thing sacred 
 to her. 
 
 No one seems to have thought it necessary to teach 
 Ella Flagg the use of books; in fact, she was about 
 eight or nine years of age before she learned to read, 
 and then she literally taught herself. 
 
 At the breakfast table one morning there was much 
 excitement over an account in the morning paper of the 
 burning of a schoolhouse. Ella was especially im- 
 pressed by her mother saying, in a horror-stricken tone, 
 " Think of it, little children of Ella's age threw them- 
 selves out of the upper-story windows ! " After the 
 family had left the table, she asked her mother to 
 read it to her. Then, taking the paper into her arms, 
 she went weeping into a room by herself and tried to 
 read. She remembered the exact beginning, and fitted 
 it with her finger to the words in the newspaper. She 
 soon became aware that she did not know the words 
 after the first few lines, and she went to the kitchen 
 and asked the "girl" to read it. In this way she was 
 able, finally, to read the whole acount, which, fortu- 
 nately for her, was not long. She became interested 
 immediately in learning to read. If her reading was 
 late and untaught, her penmanship was still later, for she 
 refused to learn to write until she was ten years of age. 
 
 No further notice was taken of this acquisition until
 
 Early Life and Education 21 
 
 one day when there was a quilting bee at the house, 
 and in the course of conversation she spoke out, utter- 
 ing some positive ideas. What she said she does not 
 know, but she remembers distinctly the looks on the 
 faces of the quilters, and her mother's putting her arm 
 around her, saying, " I don't know how this little Cal- 
 vinist got into the family, but we are all glad she is 
 here." The quilting was resumed, and Mrs. Cameron, 
 her mother's aunt by marriage, called the little girl to 
 sit by her. Soon the aunt spoke out, " Jeannie, do you 
 know what this child is reading? Baxter's Call to the 
 Unconverted" The ladies started to laugh, but her 
 mother's tone and manner were so calmly dignified 
 when she said, "Ella, put on your sunbonnet and go 
 to your garden," that Ella went in silence from the 
 room. The next day her mother took her down town 
 and the little girl returned with Mother Goose in her 
 hand. In the meantime, Baxter had disappeared, and 
 because of a sensitiveness about the ladies and some- 
 thing not understood, she did not enquire about the 
 book. Years later, when breaking up the home after 
 her mother's death, she came across the Call to the 
 Unconverted at the bottom of a trunk filled with maga- 
 zines and books. 
 
 Most of her early reading, however, was serious- 
 minded material, such as she found in the family 
 library, and hardly fitted, according to present-day 
 standards, to the mind of a child. Before ten she had 
 committed to memory the Westminster Catechism and 
 most of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Epistles to 
 the Corinthians, and the Psalms. 
 
 On account of illness, Ella was not sent to school
 
 22 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 with the other two children until they were in the gram- 
 mar department, her mother adhering to the plan of 
 developing her physical strength. Each year she was 
 given a piece of ground and was obliged to cultivate this 
 flower bed, and also to care for certain garden vege- 
 tables. When gardening became a subject of instruc- 
 tion in the schools, after she had taught many years, 
 she was an ardent supporter of the work, but more than 
 once she quietly remarked to her friends that personally 
 and practically she detested gardening, although pro- 
 fessionally and theoretically she believed that every 
 child should like it, should love plants and their 
 ways. 
 
 As a child, after learning to read, gardening was 
 made less objectionable by means of a plan which she 
 and her brother adopted. He would bring her chair 
 to the garden bed, and, making herself comfortable, 
 she would read to him and expound the text while he 
 would weed and hoe. Many were the times when her 
 book learning was brought to a sudden pause by a 
 criticism or a question raised by the boy pulling weeds 
 or hoeing. She has said that these remarks and ques- 
 tions taught her early to be sure of the gist of what 
 she was reading, and to avoid verbose explanations 
 when she really did not know, in the full sense of know- 
 ing, what she was explaining. Such was the relation 
 between the mother and the children that this garden 
 study plan was submitted to her for approval and not 
 practiced surreptitiously. 
 
 As soon as she entered school, the management and 
 the recitations interested her deeply. She did not find 
 the strangers among the children interesting. In short,
 
 Early Life and Education 23 
 
 a child life spent with her mother had resulted in the 
 usual condition preference for the society of grown 
 people. 
 
 That quite early she saw the desirability of stating 
 an answer independent of illustration, is evident from 
 her reply when asked by her mother, as she was get- 
 ting ready for school, why she was so uneasy : " Today, 
 as you know, is public examination day, and when some- 
 body asks me, ' Why do you invert the divisor in divi- 
 sion of fractions?' I can't reply." Her mother asked, 
 "What can you do?" "I can show it by going back 
 to one." Her father's democracy was shown when he 
 detected a developing priggishness in her, after she 
 was made a monitor and given a desk by the side of the 
 principal. One day at dinner he said, " She talks like 
 a little prig. What is she doing in school?" The 
 reply that she sat on the teacher's platform and taught 
 a class in Colburn's Mental Arithmetic, brought in- 
 structions that she was to have a desk on the floor 
 with other children, though she might continue to teach 
 arithmetic. 
 
 Upon her parents making their home in Chicago 
 just after her thirteenth birthday, she was greatly dis- 
 appointed to learn that she would not be eligible to 
 enter the examination for admission to the high school 
 until she had attended a Chicago grammar school one 
 year. She entered the highest grade in the Brown 
 School, but found it very wearisome to hear the class 
 going over what was known to her, and naturally, in 
 a few months, she dropped out. Five years later, after 
 she had taught eight months in the Foster School, she 
 was made head assistant of the Brown School.
 
 24 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 In 1860 she was invited by some young woman to 
 go with her to the teachers' examination, which she 
 passed successfully but was too young to be awarded 
 a certificate. In dismay as to what to do with her, the 
 superintendent asked if she would like to enter the 
 Normal School, and she was entered. 
 
 Schools were endeavoring to effect an organization 
 that would make them alike in scholarship and disci- 
 pline. The Normal School was looked upon as the 
 chief instrumentality for forwarding the plans for sys- 
 tematizing the schools. Miss Flagg saw the aim, and 
 fell in with the means for securing it. With no reflec- 
 tion upon the principal of the Normal School, she 
 thought in later years that it was most unfortunate for 
 her that she loyally supported the school and its me- 
 chanical methods. Posture was thought to be a funda- 
 mental in a good school not a posture that was suited 
 to develop each one's body, but a posture in which each 
 child sat so exactly like the others that they all seemed 
 more like copies of a model than living individuals. 
 Many methods were like the mechanics in military 
 drill but wholly unsuited to the play of thought. 
 Written examinations were the tests by which all were 
 measured. 
 
 Miss Flagg discussed her work and her lessons fre- 
 quently with her father. He was seldom entirely satis- 
 fied with the work of the schools, and always insisted 
 on her finding out the reasons back of things. One 
 evening she was looking at a cut of an hydraulic press 
 when her father asked her about it. After she had 
 finished, she knew from the look on his face that he was 
 annoyed. She left the room and returned as her father
 
 Early Life and Education 2$ 
 
 was saying to her mother, " She had a fairly good mind 
 to start with, but if she continues under such teaching 
 she won't have any mind after a while." Greatly 
 depressed, she returned to the hydraulic press and, 
 carefully studying it step by step, discovered that a very 
 important piece was not in the cut. The next day a 
 written examination was given and one question was 
 on the advanced lesson the hydraulic press. All 
 papers except hers were marked zero on the press, the 
 important piece not having been inserted. In the talk 
 among the students about the zero, the opinion was 
 general that they should be expected to learn what 
 was in the textbook, not to find mistakes therein. 
 
 Through such thoughtful and sympathetic guidance 
 and such careful reading and thinking, she grew into 
 habits of reflection and scientific accuracy and appreci- 
 ation for the finer qualities of human life. Luckily her 
 mental energy was not frittered away by being ex- 
 pended on an endless list of namby-pamby child-books. 
 Her mind and body grew, free from the external dis- 
 tractions which are so common in our own day, and her 
 habits of study and self-control grew at the same pace. 
 
 In the professional study of the Normal School, 
 Wayland's Mental Philosophy was used simply to 
 develop the " Mental Faculties," and the theory of 
 " Formal Discipline." In commenting on this work, 
 she says: 
 
 I accepted the theory of the faculties, but I remember dis- 
 tinctly telling my mother that I thought if the whole object in 
 learning a subject was simply to get discipline out of it, that the 
 subject was not worth much. It would better be omitted. She 
 remarked that she hoped I would have an opportunity to put 
 my ideas into operation some day.
 
 26 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Her mother, who had noted the impression that 
 methods and system were making, felt greatly dis- 
 turbed, but not in the same way that the father was irri- 
 tated. The course was two years in length. In the 
 vacation before the beginning of the second year, the 
 mother had a talk with the prospective teacher, telling 
 her that it was probably best that she leave school, 
 abandoning the idea of becoming a teacher; that being 
 the youngest child, she did not know young children, 
 and having always dealt severely with herself for hav- 
 ing done wrong or blundered, she would deal with 
 other children as severely, which would be a mistake. 
 The daughter thought over the suggestions and then 
 planned to visit lower primary rooms once a week to 
 determine whether they would not interest her. None 
 of her classmates felt willing to enter on the plan of 
 visitation of schools, so she went alone. The first two 
 visits were made on hot afternoons in small recitation 
 rooms in which everybody seemed dull and sleepy. The 
 prospect was not encouraging. The third week she 
 went to a school a mile distant. Walking rapidly, 
 almost running at times, she knocked at the door of the 
 schoolroom of JVIiss Rounds. Upon explaining that 
 she was in the senior class of the Normal but didn't 
 know anything about young children, she was made 
 welcome and the children were given the information 
 which had been given the teacher. They smiled a wel- 
 come and she took a seat on the platform. In speaking 
 of that first-reader room, she says: 
 
 In the course of an hour, I was conscious that here was a 
 relation between teacher and children, an atmosphere envelop- 
 ing all, that I had never known in a school. The next week
 
 Early Life and Education 27 
 
 found me again in that wonderful schoolroom. Soon after I 
 entered, the third week, Miss Rounds asked if I would like to 
 teach a class. From that time a part of every visit was spent in 
 teaching. 
 
 Later the mother told the daughter that her objec- 
 tion to her becoming a teacher was gone; that the influ- 
 ence of association with real children was evident. 
 Two weeks from the day when Miss Flagg began 
 teaching, the mother died, but in that expressed doubt 
 and that observed interest she had awakened the sense 
 of responsibility acting through a personal interest and 
 a consciousness of what that interest may achieve, 
 which remained active through more than a half-cen- 
 tury of life as a teacher. 
 
 One by one the family ties of her early life were 
 severed by death. Charles Theodore Flagg, the 
 brother, was in many of the great battles of the Civil 
 War but received no wounds. He was killed when 
 traveling on a railroad train in 1868 in an accident 
 which brought death to him only. In 1868 she married 
 William Young, who had been a friend of the family 
 for ten years. Her work as a teacher was not aban- 
 doned, because of the uncertainty of Mr. Young's 
 health, which was precarious even at the time of their 
 marriage. Later he left Chicago on this account for 
 the West, where he died. Shortly afterwards, her 
 father and sister succumbed to pneumonia, and so the 
 family relationships were all closed by death long 
 before her work in the schools was ended. 
 
 It is worthy of comment, in concluding this brief 
 sketch of Ella Flagg' s early life, to note the insignifi- 
 cance of the school in her education as compared with
 
 28 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 the influences of her home. Home occupied a larger 
 place in the education of children than it does at the 
 present time. She was not thrown at the tender age 
 of four into a crowd of children in the kindergarten 
 to be " socialized," but was left to grow up in seclusion, 
 learning life's lessons directly from parents and the 
 few other children of the home. She worked out alone 
 the questions of nature and of self-control. The home 
 in which she grew was fitted to build a strong, self- 
 directing life. In all the years of service in schools, she 
 recognized the dangers to children of the excitements 
 of modern city life which she saw in the light of her 
 own more primitive, quiet, sympathetic world of home.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TEACHING SCHOOL FIFTY YEARS AGO 
 
 ASKED what element of strength lies at the foun- 
 dation of her success in life, Mrs. Young replies, 
 "systematic work." All her life has been molded by 
 continuous application to definite lines of work, not in 
 a haphazard fashion, but in a carefully prepared plan 
 rigidly adhered to from the beginning. Few people 
 have been able to stick to a program more consistently 
 than she has. One of the plans formulated by her the 
 first year she taught was for the disposition of her time 
 outside of school hours. According to this plan, three 
 evenings each week were given to study; three were 
 devoted to social interests and to meeting people in 
 her community; and Sunday evening was reserved for 
 church. 
 
 Her first task on her study evenings was to review 
 to herself in an oral way the work of the previous eve- 
 ning, and then to go on with the advanced work. Out 
 of this systematic use of her time she has acquired 
 the ability to concentrate herself on the task at hand 
 and accomplish a great deal in a short time. She has 
 adhered to this plan of study all her life, so that her 
 mind is always posted on the latest books and ideas in 
 her work. Undoubtedly the plan of meeting and asso- 
 ciating with people has kept her in touch with others 
 and prevented her from becoming a book-worm and 
 recluse. In her selection of material for study, she 
 followed the advice of her father and began with his- 
 
 29
 
 30 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 tory. Commencing with Hume, she studied ancient 
 and modern European and American history. In this 
 work she acquired a large library which later she used 
 to furnish books for her pupils in school. 
 
 When Mrs. Young began her teaching in 1862, the 
 world of education and society was propitious for an 
 ambitious young woman. Like all periods of modern 
 history, this was an age when great forces were operat- 
 ing social, economic, religious, intellectual. It was 
 an age of revolution in industrial interests, an age of 
 application of science and machinery to industry and 
 transportation. It saw the beginnings of the impetus 
 to great cities and city interests. Professional life was 
 rapidly broadening into wider fields than the classical 
 ones of ministry and law. This opening up of new 
 fields of professional life gave women greater oppor- 
 tunities in the work of teaching. New interpreta- 
 tions of education, new forms of schools, normal 
 schools, colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts, 
 were making their appearance at this time. In two 
 particulars this age was unique: it was the period of 
 the Civil War in America; it was an age of scientific 
 discovery. 
 
 The effects of the Civil War as an epoch-making era 
 in every phase of American life are too well known to 
 need elaboration, but in none of these phases were the 
 effects greater than in education. It was an age to 
 try the strength of men and women. Thousands of 
 America's young manhood were giving their lives in the 
 cause of an idea. Chicago, like every other section of 
 the country, was feeling the stress and strain of this 
 great strife. Not only was brother divided against
 
 Teaching School Fifty Years Ago 31 
 
 brother, but end to free government was fully assured 
 in the minds of many men. The struggle for the per- 
 manency of democratic institutions made this age criti- 
 cal in the life of the race. Bitterness, sorrow, selfish- 
 ness, and even cowardice walked the streets beside 
 patriotism, enthusiasm, and self-sacrifice. Financial 
 depression, though keenly felt, was not the hardest of 
 the social problems. The effects of this war on the 
 minds of men are hard to determine. In camp and on 
 battlefield, men from all walks of life were brought 
 together on a common level to defeat or to be defeated. 
 In spite of the evils spread by the war, association of 
 men from all quarters of the country tended to break 
 up provincialism and to form a cosmopolitanism not 
 existing before. The power of local church and politi- 
 cal ties was broken and in their stead came laxity of 
 dogma and freedom from the domination of domestic 
 discipline. 
 
 The war made calls upon the schools in two direc- 
 tions, both of them extremely important in their bearing 
 upon the life of Ella Flagg Young. In the first place, 
 the young men who left the schools of Illinois and 
 other Northern states for the battlefields had to be 
 replaced by young women. Reluctant school directors 
 were compelled to employ women as teachers in order 
 that the schools might continue. In the second place, 
 the war produced new demands upon the schools for 
 training in patriotism, in history, and in civics. A new 
 conception of the school as a preparation for citizen- 
 ship and as a public bulwark against internal strife and 
 external aggressions was born. American orators 
 waxed eloquent over free schools for a free nation.
 
 32 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Hereafter, "mental discipline" shares the place of 
 honor with training for citizenship. 
 It is thus evident that Mrs. Young began her teach- 
 ing at the outset of the modern " feminist move- 
 ment," just at the time when the war made it necessary 
 for women to take a larger share in the professional 
 life of the community. That position of prominence 
 in the woman movement she has held throughout her 
 career, always taking a step in advance with every open- 
 ing for women. Her work as a leader of this move- 
 ment has never been that of the advocate, but rather 
 that of the demonstrator of the capacity of woman for 
 places of responsibility in the affairs of the society. 
 
 From the agitation during the war and immediately 
 succeeding that period for school-training in citizenship 
 Mrs. Young received an inspiration which has been one 
 of her strongest motives in dealing with public educa- 
 tion. Her faith in the power of the schools to mold 
 men and women for the duties of the state has been a 
 dominant factor in shaping the work she has done in 
 this city. To her Chicago has been a great opportunity 
 for practicing the ethics of citizenship. It was the 
 insight that came to her during the very first years of 
 her teaching that led her to adopt as the foundation 
 of her educational philosophy the doctrine of the 
 responsibility of the school to society.* 
 
 * That Mrs. Young felt the value of education for citizenship and 
 studied diligently on the problem is evident from one of her earliest 
 addresses before the National Education Association which met in 
 Chicago during the summer of 1887. Her subject was "How to teach 
 parents to discriminate between good and bad teaching." She says 
 the day has passed when even a minority of parents can be induced 
 to visit schools. The school must stand on its ability to hold children
 
 Teaching School Fifty Years Ago 33 
 
 As an age of scientific interest and discovery, the 
 period when Mrs. Young began to teach was unique, 
 and the influence on her entire life profound. Darwin 
 had but recently published his treatise on the Origin of 
 Species, and Spencer, in 1860, his book on Education. 
 The world was ablaze with controversy over concep- 
 tions long since considered finally settled. A British 
 writer quoted by E. L. Youmans * in 1867 says: 
 
 There have been, in consequence of revelations by scientific 
 research in this direction and that, some most notable enlarge- 
 ments of our view of physical nature and of history en- 
 largements even to the breaking down of what had formerly 
 been a wall in the minds of most, and the substitution on that 
 side of a sheer vista of open space. 
 
 However slow the profession of teaching to give 
 more than lip service to the new doctrines of science, 
 still, during the period under discussion, minds and 
 hearts were quickened through the efforts of the great 
 leaders of thought. Scientific interests and investiga- 
 tions could not long go on without attempts on the part 
 of those in the schools to carry over to educational 
 activities the questions raised by scientists. For the 
 most part the movement of science became effective in 
 education through its utilitarian bearing on the ques- 
 
 to Ideals and habits of honesty, work, clear thinking, and this can be 
 done only as teachers possess these habits. " Parents who have seen 
 the influence of a high-grade instruction will need no suggestion re- 
 garding the difference, when a weak teacher or a sham assumes 
 charge of their children. . . . Although the patrons have done 
 but little visiting, it has long been evident that they not only appreci- 
 ate, but are keenly alive to the merits of the superior teacher." She 
 insists upon teachers making themselves felt in the community as 
 forces for control, a view that showed a clear recognition of the 
 social significance of the school. 
 
 * The Culture Demanded by Modern Life. D. Appleton & Co., 
 New York.
 
 34 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 tions of preparing the young for society. The Morrill 
 Act of 1862, establishing colleges of agriculture and 
 mechanic arts in various states, was an evidence of the 
 influence of scientific interests working out into school 
 life. As summarized by Youmans, " deeper than all 
 questions of reconstruction, suffrage, and finance is the 
 question what kind of culture shall the growing mind 
 of the nation have?" And the answer was given in 
 terms of the new realism being propagated through the 
 teachings of science. 
 
 To summarize the movements of the time when Mrs. 
 Young began to teach, we may say: Democracy at last 
 was demanding that the schools take account of the 
 resources of society, the needs of the community and 
 individuals, and the capacities of those being educated. 
 In this new movement of democracy the doom of aca- 
 demic culture, of religious and of aristocratic training 
 was sounded, and the schools were called upon to pre- 
 pare men and women for the actual life of the times 
 in a state where efficiency, and initiative and moral 
 strength were the powers demanded. Discipline and 
 culture had concerned themselves previously with train- 
 ing the few in the classics, in mathematics, in philosophy 
 and logic, and had prepared. only for the learned pro- 
 fessions. Henceforth education must concern itself 
 with the activities common to the people. Industry, 
 labor, agriculture, and all interests were now to be 
 considered as essential factors in the determination of 
 an educational scheme. Practicality and utility were 
 the tests that were to be applied relentlessly to the 
 schools from this period forward, no matter what the 
 grade of work.
 
 Teaching School Fifty Years Ago 35 
 
 As already pointed out, Mrs. Young had been 
 brought up in a home where an open-minded attitude 
 towards scientific and philosophic questions was encour- 
 aged. That she readily took hold of the great questions 
 of the day is not surprising from such a training as that 
 given her by her father* She insists that she was nar- 
 rowly academic in her practice and theory when she first 
 entered the schoolroom. But her mind was full of the 
 ideas of the time, and she was striving to understand 
 the problems of education as she found them in Chicago. 
 That she understood the needs of new work and new 
 practices is clear from her interest in the course of 
 study formulated by Superintendent Wells of the city 
 schools the year she began to teach. This course was 
 based on the Object-Lesson plan, the form which ele- 
 mentary science took in the schools of the period. 
 During her first year of teaching she wrote out all 
 the knowledge involved in this Object-Lesson, or oral, 
 course throughout the ten grades. This course in ele- 
 mentary science was in line with her early training and 
 her interests in the movements of the day. 
 
 Mrs. Young was first appointed to teach in a primary 
 grade of the old Foster School. After six weeks in 
 this grade she accepted against the advice of all the 
 teachers in the school, because of the difficulty of the 
 class an upper grade, one known as the "cowboy" 
 class. It derived its name from the fact that most of 
 the boys in the class spent their time outside of school 
 "herding" the cattle belonging to the families of the 
 neighborhood on the prairies outside of the town. As 
 might be supposed, such a group of boys, like the 
 present-day "newsies," had a reputation that made
 
 36 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 them undesirable in the schoolroom. In this room, 
 with many of the boys older and much larger than the 
 young teacher, she found no difficulty in meeting all 
 requirements of a good school. Only once during the 
 year she spent in the room did she have to resort to 
 harsh measures, and the effects of her treatment seem 
 to have been appreciated by the overgrown boy in the 
 case. A story is told of her custom of staying regu- 
 larly until dark in the schoolroom finishing the work 
 of the day. On one occasion one boy who had caused 
 her most trouble as a disturber in the room remained 
 after the others had gone, to remonstrate with his 
 youthful teacher for staying so late and going out on 
 the dark streets alone. Evidently her work with the 
 boys and girls had made some impression, since one of 
 them wished to see that she ran no risk in the neighbor- 
 hood after dark. 
 
 Like most beginners, doubtless Mrs. Young took up 
 her work in the school imbued with the "methods" 
 which she had been taught in the Normal School. 
 Doubtless, also, she was imbued with the spirit of 
 success, for, as already pointed out, she made her own 
 practice school while still a student at the Normal. 
 Unlike most beginners, however, she had few school- 
 room traditions to guide or hamper her, since most of 
 her education had been gained outside of the schools. 
 It was largely this lack of experience with the tradi- 
 tional school practice that enabled her from the start 
 to succeed in dealing with boys and girls, because she 
 never had any of the formality of teaching to overcome 
 in meeting children. She met her pupils openly and 
 frankly on their own level, without any of the conde-
 
 Teaching School Fifty Years Ago 37 
 
 scending or stilted habit of the school-ma'am, and she 
 was able to hold them without force. 
 
 When Mrs. Young began her teaching the "pro- 
 fession" was not in very high standing. Normal 
 schools had not long been in existence, and few of the 
 teachers had made any special preparation for the 
 work. Chicago and Illinois were like the rest of the 
 country in this respect. A picture of the conditions in 
 Cook County is given in a letter of the late John F. 
 Eberhart, school commissioner of the county in 1859, 
 who says: 
 
 There was little interest in education outside of Chicago. 
 The county schools were without system and were very ineffi- 
 cient and neglected. There had been no school supervision, 
 because the pay for such service was only two dollars a day. 
 Certificates had been given indiscriminately at the request of 
 the directors, and many were teaching without certificates. . . . 
 There were then fifty-five teachers in the city, and one hundred 
 and ninety-eight in the county outside of the city. . . . The 
 situation was not inviting at first. Much of the territory about 
 Chicago was occupied by "squatters" and renters, mostly of for- 
 eign birth, who had but little interest in schools except to get 
 money out of them. In one district adjoining the city one 
 director was paid fifty dollars a month to superintend the erec- 
 tion of a two-room school; his son got five dollars a month as 
 janitor, and his daughter fifty dollars a month as teacher, al- 
 though she had no certificate. In another district two of the 
 directors signed the teacher's schedule by making their mark. 
 ... In another district there was a complaint that the teacher 
 got drunk. I visited the school and found two or three children 
 playing outside the schoolhouse and no one inside. I inquired 
 whether school was in vacation. They said it was not, but that 
 the " teacher was down at that house," and one of them volun- 
 teered to go for him. While the messenger was gone I plied 
 the other children with questions and learned that the teacher 
 spent most of his time with friends out of school and in sa- 
 loons, and that attendance was irregular though his last
 
 38 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 schedule showed not a single absence for the whole term. They 
 also said that he kept a bottle locked up in his desk, from which 
 he frequently took a drink. His salary was fifty dollars a 
 month and he and his friends felt much aggrieved when his 
 certificate was revoked. (Quoted from Cook's Educational 
 History of Illinois, p. 263.) 
 
 Much as has been said in recent years about women 
 teachers, because of their unstable tenure of the posi- 
 tion making the attainment of a high professional 
 standing for teaching impossible, the fact remains that 
 until they entered the schools as teachers there was no 
 pretense of a profession of teaching. The men who 
 took up such work were either incompetent or were 
 ambitious young fellows striving to get on to some 
 other occupation and found teaching the easiest means 
 of securing a little ready money. Any man could teach, 
 no matter what his preparation or standing. Mrs. 
 Young entered the work just at the turning of the way, 
 and, as already pointed out, when women were becom- 
 ing the teachers. She was deeply interested in the 
 professional side of the work and set about learning 
 how to do the thing in the most effective way. In this 
 respect she was not unlike a great many other young 
 women of her time, though she proved unusually 
 successful in learning to do the work effectively. 
 
 She found the schools of the city striving to keep 
 room enough for the rapidly growing population. In 
 1860 Superintendent W. H. Wells reported that 
 
 It is well known that the greatest evil from which the schools 
 have heretofore suffered has been the crowded state of the pri- 
 mary rooms, and the large number of pupils necessarily given 
 to a single teacher. In this respect there has been some improve- 
 ment. One year ago the average number of pupils belonging to
 
 Teaching School Fifty Years Ago 39 
 
 each teacher in the primary schools of the city was eighty-one. 
 The average number belonging to each primary teacher at the 
 present time is seventy-seven. The number is still too large by 
 at least seventeen, and fully seventeen-sixtieths of the efficiency 
 and value of the schools are sacrificed on this account. 
 
 The next year the president of the board of education 
 recommended legislation to raise the school age from 
 five to six years in order to relieve the overcrowded 
 conditions of the schools. In 1862 the superintendent 
 reports a large number of "branches," one school hav- 
 ing four rooms rented, all of which were reported unfit 
 for school children. It was estimated that year that 
 three thousand children between five and fifteen were 
 running the streets, and no relief was in sight for the 
 following years. 
 
 Not only was the profession of teaching in a low 
 state at the time Mrs. Young entered the work, and 
 not only were the lower schools overcrowded, but with 
 few exceptions schools were not equipped with appli- 
 ances now considered essential for teaching. Black- 
 boards were just coming into general use. Most rooms 
 in the city schools were heated with stoves, and teachers 
 were required by rule of the board of education to look 
 after the ventilation by opening windows. Into some 
 schools, of which the Foster was one, steam heating 
 had been introduced. Mr. Wells remarks that "it 
 must be confessed that in the art of heating and venti- 
 lating schoolhouses we have not made much progress." 
 State Superintendent Bateman said regarding this sub- 
 ject in 1860 that 
 
 The reckless indifference and cruel neglect of this essential fea- 
 ture of a good schoolhouse in many parts of Illinois surpasses
 
 40 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 belief. . . . The disregard of the laws of health manifested in 
 the style of seats or benches often provided for young children 
 can hardly be too earnestly deprecated. Children at that tender 
 age, when curvature of spine or distortion of limb may be pro- 
 duced by slight and almost imperceptible causes, are required to 
 sit for hours daily in seats so constructed by ordinary house 
 carpenters as not only to be unpleasant and inconvenient, but 
 absolutely to do violence to every bone in their bodies. And 
 children immured in these spine-bending, chest-compressing fix- 
 tures are required to be as still and patient and sweet-tempered 
 as if their chairs were models of physiological adaptation and 
 anatomical skill. And when they grow restless and irritable 
 and stifled cries escape them, the sharp reproof often reveals 
 the truth that the cause of the irrepressible uneasiness is not 
 understood even by the teacher. 
 
 In Chicago matters were not much better, though the 
 new school buildings were furnished with single seats 
 and desks. 
 
 The course of study, as noted above, had been a 
 matter of active reorganization under the leadership 
 of Superintendent W. H. Wells. In reorganizing the 
 work utilitarian and scientific interests were kept in the 
 foreground. Mr. Wells said in 1861 that 
 
 The regular course of school studies, in most cities and towns, 
 is already sufficiently extended, and yet it is notorious that pupils 
 leave the public schools lamentably deficient on a great variety 
 of subjects connected with a sound, practical education. 
 
 It was with a view to furnishing sound, " practical " 
 education that the course was changed to give emphasis 
 upon physiology, mineralogy and geology, natural phi- 
 losophy, and chemistry " of common things." To thrust 
 upon the schools such a scheme of education at a time 
 when academic and book training was the only kind to
 
 Teaching School Fifty Years Ago 41 
 
 be had by the teachers, was a sure way to add another 
 load of facts to be gained from books. Such was the 
 fate of the "object lessons," of the elementary-science 
 course, as it was called. It turned out to be a series of 
 lessons for language, most of which were committed to 
 memory by the children from the books. Nevertheless, 
 the efforts to change the course so as to make it more 
 "practical" and more in accord with newly awakened 
 interests in science were valuable and were fruitful of 
 stimulating the younger and brighter minds among the 
 teaching force to growth. -It stimulated Mrs. Young 
 to know in detail the demands of this new line of edu- 
 cation, and from her work in connection with it she 
 soon outgrew the purely academic training which she 
 had received in the Normal School. In her criticism, 
 in later years, of this work in the schools Mrs. Young 
 has called it a "bottled science" course because of the 
 kind of material used to illustrate it. 
 
 From this brief summary of the social and intellec- 
 tual conditions of the time, of the poor preparation of 
 teachers, of the entrance of women into the schools, 
 of overcrowding, of poor equipment, and of the new 
 course of study, it must be evident that Mrs. Young 
 began to teach at a time when education was a live 
 element in the affairs of the city. Indeed, the period 
 marks a turning point in the history of American public 
 schools. Whether a free people can continue without 
 free schools was considered seriously at this particular 
 time. In her later activities and words on this subject, 
 it is evident that Mrs. Young learned very thoroughly 
 during these first years her lesson of the public and 
 social responsibility of the schools. Whatever the
 
 42 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 equipment, and whatever the requirements of the course 
 of study, one thing she realized should be accomplished 
 by her school, and that was the preparation of the 
 young for participation in free institutions. 
 
 After one year in the grades as teacher, Mrs. Young 
 was made head assistant in the Brown School. Although 
 still a young girl, she remained here for two years. The 
 position enabled her to become acquainted with the con- 
 ditions and needs of the school as a whole. She was 
 untiring in her study of the management of the school, 
 of the course of study, and of the needs of children 
 and teachers. One of the most apparent needs, as she 
 soon found, was that of training the teachers for ele- 
 mentary schools. In every grade the work was an 
 exact counterpart of the intelligence and training and 
 sympathy of the teacher. Her interest in this subject 
 led her to prepare herself to help train them for service 
 in the schools. At the end of two years as head assist- 
 ant she was selected as the first principal of the new 
 " practice school " of the Normal. In order to pre- 
 pare as completely as possible she got permission from 
 the board of education to visit the Oswego (New 
 York) Normal School, where elementary science had 
 been worked out more fully than elsewhere in the form 
 of the " object lessons.'' Because of restrictions at 
 the school she failed to gain her desired end, and came 
 away no wiser on their " methods " than she went. But 
 her failure in no way dampened her intention to pre- 
 pare for the work of supervising the practice school, 
 and she set about making her own method of work. 
 In her own normal-school days she had succeeded in 
 making a practice school for herself, and now that the
 
 s.s
 
 Teaching School Fifty Years Ago 43 
 
 opportunity came for her to help train others she was 
 equal to the occasion. In this respect Mrs. Young 
 revealed one of her striking qualities by her " fore- 
 handedness," her readiness for the job calling her.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 EARLY TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN CHICAGO AND 
 MRS. YOUNG'S PART IN IT 
 
 conception that teachers are made, not born, 
 developed in this country only a short while before 
 Mrs. Young began to teach. Founded in 1856 as an 
 adjunct of the high school, the normal department had 
 been preparing "young ladies" to teach in the elemen- 
 tary schools of the city. Not all of the teachers, nor 
 even a large percentage of them, had come from this 
 school. Examinations held regularly provided most 
 of the teachers for the schools, and these examinations 
 were such that a person with the ordinary grammar- 
 school education, with or without experience in teach- 
 ing, might get into the occupation of teaching. The 
 normal department of the high school was not re- 
 garded highly at the time and its students were not 
 always of the better grade. But the importance of the 
 normal department was not entirely in the number or 
 the character of the students it turned into the schools 
 as teachers. The fact that it kept alive the idea of pro- 
 fessional training as an ideal for the teacher when such 
 an idea was vague and meaningless to most people, was 
 sufficient excuse for its continued existence. Profes- 
 sional training was becoming a recognized part of the 
 equipment of teaching, as well as of other branches of 
 learning. 
 
 It was well that such training was emphasized in a 
 tangible way at this particular time, because the func- 
 
 44
 
 Early Training of Teachers 45 
 
 tion of the teacher was undergoing a rapid modification. 
 Vaguely held as was the new meaning then being given 
 to education as a preparation for a democratic society, 
 it was developing new lines along which teachers must 
 direct their energies. Ability to control children 
 through fear of the rod was giving place to control 
 through understanding the nature and needs of the 
 person being taught. Superintendent J. L. Pickard 
 says in his report to the Board of Education in 1870: 
 
 From time immemorial the teacher's acquaintance with arith- 
 metic, grammar, and geography has served as a passport to the 
 teacher's desk. It is but very recently that a knowledge of the 
 structure of the human body, and of its hygienic laws, has had 
 any weight in determining a teacher's qualifications. 
 
 No regard had been paid to the mental and rnoral 
 being of the children except so far as these were con- 
 cerned in pursuing academic studies. He continues : 
 
 The next step in our progress must be the requirement of 
 knowledge of the laws that govern man in his physical, mental, 
 and moral being. But in our path lie the obstructions of long- 
 established usage, and the lack of a really professional spirit. 
 . . . The impression has prevailed that the things taught were 
 of more value than the person taught. For the prevalence of 
 this impression teachers are themselves largely responsible. Rela- 
 tively too much stress has been laid upon the ability of the child 
 to stand the test of an examination in reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic too little upon its ability to meet the hard work of 
 life with resolute will, self-reliant and patient. . . . Our most 
 successful teachers are those who are keeping themselves abreast 
 of the times, who are constantly studying into the mental needs 
 of their pupils, and who spend more hours upon the " How to 
 teach " than upon the " What to teach," or rather, who, know- 
 ing well what to teach, are busying themselves constantly with 
 the discovery of the real powers of the child and of better 
 methods of application of means to the development of the mind 
 of the child.
 
 46 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 One other agency besides the normal school was 
 instrumental in developing and keeping alive the newer 
 notion of teaching and the necessity for preparation 
 for the work, namely, the Saturday meetings and the 
 Teachers' Institutes. Much more was made of this 
 form of instruction then than in later days; in fact, this 
 was the only professional training many of the teachers 
 ever got. Through lectures on subjects and the teach- 
 ing of them, ideas were disseminated of a more modern 
 and humane nature. The better grade of teacher was 
 always faithful in attendance upon these meetings.* 
 
 In order to foster the training of teachers in the 
 normal department it was found necessary to establish 
 a school of practice. In 1865, at the age of twenty, 
 Mrs. Young was placed at the head of the newly 
 formed school. Superintendent Pickard reports at 
 length on the reasons for establishing this school and 
 for selecting Mrs. Young as its first head: 
 
 Intellectual qualifications alone are not sufficient to insure 
 success in the teacher, nor will mere theorizing, however thor- 
 oughly comprehended, add much to the worth of the young 
 teacher. Some actual practice is needed during the preparatory 
 Normal course. Our best Normal schools have their schools 
 of practice called " Model Schools." These considerations led 
 me to examine into the feasibility of adding this important 
 feature to our Normal school. That the school of practice 
 might be of the greatest value, it seemed to me that it should 
 be as near like the actual school as possible. So far as my obser- 
 vation had extended, the Model schools attached to the Normal 
 schools of the country were not the same in character as the 
 actual school for which teachers were being trained. The 
 pupils were generally the children of parents in easy circum- 
 
 *Among the instructors in these institutes in 1868 is the name of 
 Miss Flagg, who discussed the subjects "The Human Body Parts and 
 Uses," and "Common Objects."
 
 Early Training of Teachers 47 
 
 stances who could afford to pay the tuition fee charged, and 
 very generally children who were well governed at home; so 
 that the discipline and instruction would be very uniform and 
 comparatively easy; while there was not variety enough to 
 develop to the fullest extent the tact of the teacher, not enough 
 of the worst element to lead the teacher to cultivate the graces 
 of patience. 
 
 Fortunately for us, the immediate proximity of one of our 
 gjammar schools to the high school opened the way for just such 
 a school of practice as would meet our actual wants. The sug- 
 gestion made was most heartily accepted by the board of edu- 
 cation, and two rooms in the branch of the Scammon School 
 were set apart for this school of practice, without in the least 
 disconnecting them from the rest of the school. Pupils found 
 in these rooms are just what they would have been had no such 
 change been made, their course of study the same, their promo- 
 tions from class to class and from grade to grade the same. 
 These two rooms have been placed under the charge of the 
 training teacher, Miss N. Ella Flagg,* while the immediate work 
 of instruction and of discipline is devolved upon the senior 
 Normal class, each member having charge for two weeks during 
 the year. This school of practice has also been a school of 
 observation, for the oral instruction and nearly all the general 
 exercises have been conducted by Miss Flagg in the presence of 
 the whole senior class. The fears expressed at first that this 
 frequent change of teachers might affect injuriously discipline 
 and the progress of the school have been proved entirely ground- 
 less. There have been one or two instances only of marked dis- 
 obedience, perhaps no more than would have occurred under any 
 other circumstances, while the examinations for promotion have 
 showed progress unexcelled by any school of the same grade 
 under the constant care of one teacher. The experiment, for 
 such it was felt to be, has proved more than successful, and 
 the wisdom of the board in the selection of a teacher has been 
 fully established. The hearty cooperation of the principal of 
 the Scammon School merits commendation. Thus far the school 
 of practice has touched but two grades the sixth and seventh 
 grades. So far as discipline is concerned, which is the principal 
 
 * The N which here precedes Ella was a part of Mrs. Young's 
 name but never used by her.
 
 48 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 thing to be considered, little more is needed, but in the work of 
 instruction its advantage may be gradually and profitably ex- 
 tended. The work of oral instruction in these two grades may 
 be in part committed to some Normal student who shows special 
 fitness for this work, and some time of the training teacher be 
 given to the oral instruction of one or two other grades, so that 
 the school of observation may be extended into the work of 
 other grades. The greater value of this new feature is yet to be 
 felt, as the teachers who have for the past year been combining 
 practice with theory shall enter the schools for which the trial 
 to which they have been subjected has proved them best fitted. 
 
 From year to year the reports are uniformly favor- 
 able on the work of this department of the Normal 
 School under its first principal. The president of the 
 board the next year says that the school under Miss 
 N. Ella Flagg has 
 
 Proved a very satisfactory success, and I do not say too much 
 when I say that this is not excelled by any similar school in our 
 country. The practical knowledge, the tact in teaching, and 
 discipline here gained by those preparing to teach is of more 
 real value to the young teacher than any gained in the same or 
 much more time in any other way. Many and perhaps most of 
 our teachers would be benefited and improved by a term in this 
 school. 
 
 The president of the next year says that 
 
 the Training Department, inaugurated some two years ago, 
 has been steadily growing in excellence and value since that 
 time, and is now an indispensable part of the Normal School. 
 (Report, 1867, p. 12.) 
 
 He further states that 
 
 The benefits flowing from the school of practice have been 
 plainly observable during the year. The graduating class of 
 1 866 have, with the exception of one who was physically unable 
 to teach, found employment, and success has uniformly at- 
 tended them. Their drill in the school of practice has had a 
 marked influence upon their teaching.
 
 Early Training of Teachers 49 
 
 In 1868 Superintendent Pickard declares that 
 
 The success of the school of practice is established beyond a 
 question. Our schools owe more to this agency than to any 
 other I am tempted to say than to all others. The labor 
 imposed upon the two teachers of the Normal School and school 
 of practice is more than is just. An assistant teacher should 
 be provided Mr. Delano, that he may find a little more time to 
 give to the school of practice; and that Miss Flagg may be 
 relieved from the necessity of hearing recitations in the Normal 
 school, in addition to her duties in the school of practice, of 
 themselves arduous enough. I feel that I should urge the 
 appointment of an additional teacher, because our necessities 
 enjoin upon us the enlargement of the school in numbers. The 
 classes might well be larger. ... I would be glad to see the 
 time when no teacher, unless of some experience elsewhere, shall 
 be able to find a place until graduated from the school of 
 practice at least. (Report, p. 184.) 
 
 Again in 1869 the school of practice is highly com- 
 mended by the superintendent: 
 
 This school has maintained its standing, and has given addi- 
 tional proof of its great value to our work. Not one who has 
 passed successfully through this school has failed in the regular 
 work of the schools when assigned to duty after graduation. It 
 is not to be expected that all should exhibit equal power as the 
 result of training, for the school does not create, it simply 
 develops talent. It affords means for the cultivation of what- 
 ever power the pupil-teacher possesses. It gives direction to 
 power that might otherwise be misapplied, or fail entirely of 
 application. All who graduate from the Normal School know 
 what they can do, and set immediately about it with energy and 
 with increasing success as age gives experience. (Report, p. 196.) 
 
 In this statement of the superintendent there seems 
 to be implied the complaint of persons who had been 
 found lacking in ability to take on the training of the 
 school. It is out of this complaint later that difficulty 
 arose for the principal of the practice school.
 
 50 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 In 1870 the normal primary building was erected 
 and the Normal School transferred to it from the high 
 school. The special committee of the board on high 
 school reported this year that 
 
 The first and second floors (eight rooms) of the Normal pri- 
 mary building are used for the school of practice. The members 
 of the senior class of the Normal department teach the pupils 
 attending this school under the charge of Mrs. Ella Flagg 
 Young, principal of the school of practice (a graduate of the 
 Normal department), thus saving no inconsiderable expense for 
 teachers who would otherwise have to be employed. 
 
 The same year the superintendent reports that " the 
 most responsible of all positions, that of the principal 
 of the school of practice, is filled by a normal 
 graduate." 
 
 In the same report the superintendent states that the 
 standard established by the committee on examination 
 of teachers had been gradually raised: 
 
 The average attainments of our corps of teachers is higher 
 than formerly. Our normal course is substantially the same 
 as it has been for years past. Is it not well to consider the pro- 
 priety of enlarging this course of stu^y, or of advancing the 
 requisites for admission to the Normal school ? Since the estab- 
 lishment of the high-school classes it has seemed to me that our 
 Normal school might be made more efficient by taking the pupils 
 from these classes instead of from the grammar schools, as at 
 present, and thus give a more thorough course in mental science, 
 natural history, general history, and in the history of educational 
 systems, than we can at present furnish. The work of our 
 Normal graduates is good, but might it not be made still better 
 by a little higher degree of culture, especially in the direction 
 indicated above? A diploma of graduation should be a pass- 
 port to any place that may be vacant in our schools. But, to 
 this end, a broader and deeper culture is necessary. In our 
 present system some very important topics are touched very
 
 Early Training of Teachers 51 
 
 lightly; others, not at all. An advanced standard of admission, 
 or an extended course of study, will meet the requirement, and 
 advance materially the interests of our schools. 
 
 Undoubtedly this demand for more advanced stand- 
 ards and extended course of study had grown out of 
 the complaints voiced in the previous year. The prin- 
 cipal of the practice school had found it impossible to 
 "create talent" and had been unable to make teachers 
 out of the children placed into her classes after only 
 a grammar-school training. She herself was studying 
 educational problems, and realized the need for making 
 a higher demand of the girls entering upon the prepa- 
 ration for teachers' courses. Since there had been no 
 separate "committee" for the Normal School or the 
 school of practice, all matters of scholarship and effi- 
 ciency devolved upon the two teachers in the school. 
 In undertaking to follow out the recommendations of 
 the superintendent for raising the standard of work to 
 meet the new conditions of the city, there was sure 
 to come friction somewhere, especially in a school 
 governed by the board of education as constituted in 
 Chicago. 
 
 On February 7, 1871, after the superintendent had 
 vainly striven with her to retain her place, Mrs. Young 
 asked to be transferred from the principalship of the 
 school of practice to the high-school class at the Haven 
 School. Characteristic of her whole career, she refused 
 to remain in a position which hampered her and gave 
 her no freedom for growth. The demand for fully 
 equipped teachers from a two-year training course 
 given to a lot of inexperienced girls just from grammar 
 school had compelled considerable weeding out of
 
 52 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 incompetents, and in doing so, to use Mrs. Young's 
 own words, this " often hit the friends of the poli- 
 ticians." At the time of her withdrawal Mr. Walsh 
 of the board of education offered the following resolu- 
 tion, which was adopted: 
 
 RESOLVED, That the committee on examination of teachers 
 and the committee on the Normal primary school be, and they 
 are hereby requested to investigate, conjointly, and report to 
 this board at its next regular meeting, what changes, if any, 
 are necessary to be made in the management of the school of 
 practice to insure to the ladies attending said school necessary 
 instruction, and a fair and impartial consideration of their quali- 
 fications to teach in our public schools, and to promote among 
 the pupils an ambition to attain a higher standing in deport- 
 ment, and greater proficiency in scholarship than now prevails. 
 
 It is quite evident that Mrs. Young had tried to weed 
 out those persons whom the superintendent said lacked 
 " talent," and in doing so had run foul of the constitu- 
 ents of some of the board members, one of whom, Mr. 
 Richberg, remarks incidentally that 
 
 This question [he does not explain what the question is, and we 
 have no other evidence in the Proceedings] belonged to the com- 
 mittee on examination of teachers. There was no authority 
 lodged with either principal to remove unpromising pupils. 
 The committee not having attended to this matter, the two 
 principals had acted on their own responsibility. 
 
 And as a result of their action, Mrs. Young as prin- 
 cipal of the practice school had been the one to suffer, 
 while the principal of the Normal School had not been 
 mentioned or "transferred." 
 
 At this same meeting the superintendent suggested 
 " an extension of the Normal-School course for half a
 
 Early Training of Teachers 53 
 
 year, in order to obtain a little more culture on the part 
 of the ladies who graduate there." His suggestion was 
 referred to the committee on examination of teachers. 
 At the next meeting of the board of education the 
 following is found : 
 
 The committee appointed at the last meeting to investigate 
 and report what changes, if any, were necessary in the manage- 
 ment of the school of practice, and also to report upon the super- 
 intendent's recommendation for an extension of the course of 
 study in the Normal school, report the following: 
 
 That, after the close of the present school year, the Normal 
 be made an independent school, and a committee of three mem- 
 bers be then appointed as a committee on the Normal school; 
 that hereafter a higher standard of scholarship be required for 
 admission to the Normal school, and two examinations for 
 admission to the same be held each year, and that the course 
 of study therein be revised and enlarged; that the Normal 
 primary school be discontinued and the pupils thereof be trans- 
 ferred to the Scammon school; and that the pupils of the 
 Scammon school in the ninth grade be placed in rooms most 
 convenient to the Normal to form the school of practice; that 
 the pupils of the school of practice be, as to instruction and 
 discipline, in charge of the Normal teachers, and examinations 
 for promotions be made by the principal of the Scammon 
 school; and that in selecting special teachers for the school of 
 practice the following order be observed when practicable: ist, 
 members of the Normal senior class; 2d, members of the special 
 class who are graduates of the high school ; 3d, members of the 
 special class who have been connected with our public schools; 
 4th, members of the special class who have never attended our 
 public schools. 
 
 The progress made by the pupils of the school of practice is 
 reported as favorable. During the period since its establishment 
 until the present time 176 young ladies have passed successfully 
 through it as special teachers and have been appointed as regu- 
 lar teachers. 
 
 The regulation that required the Normal School to 
 push through inexperienced and occasionally incompe-
 
 54 
 
 tent girls and make of them full-fledged teachers broke 
 down, and Mrs. Young was influential in breaking it. 
 If teachers were to be trained for the public schools 
 she insisted that they should get real training. 
 
 But she saw clearly that the board was not willing 
 to furnish the freedom necessary to carry on satisfac- 
 tory work, and refused to remain. Political influences 
 were at work in the board making it impossible for the 
 principals to keep incompetent students from gradua- 
 tion, when such students could secure the ear of a 
 member of the board of education. That such was 
 the case is clearly evident from the rule passed by the 
 board in 1873, brought about by the agitation over the 
 resignation of the principal of the school of practice. 
 This rule gave authority to the committee on examina- 
 tion and the committee on the Normal School to re- 
 move " any pupils who do not give promise of success 
 as teachers in the public schools." This provision, if 
 it had been lived up to by the board, would have se- 
 cured the demand which Mrs. Young made and would 
 have made of the Normal School a real training school 
 for teachers. 
 
 Mrs. Young's withdrawal compelled the board to 
 put the school on an independent basis and to organize 
 it so that it had the power to do its work without inter- 
 ference from outside influences. When she left the 
 school she promised the superintendent that she would 
 return to the Normal in another capacity should an 
 opportunity offer. In June, 1872, a year and a half 
 after having left the headship of the school of practice, 
 she returned to the Normal and taught mathematics 
 helped direct the work of the school of practice,
 
 Early Training of Teachers 55 
 
 She remained in this position until she became principal 
 of the Scammon School, in 1876. Her work in training 
 teachers produced lasting effects in Chicago, and her 
 own success in school work has come in no small degree 
 through her work in this direction at that period. She 
 had become a student of professional literature and had 
 begun her interest in outside improvements that made 
 her a leader in the work. The reports of William T. 
 Harris, then superintendent of schools in St. Louis, 
 came to her and she used these to good advantage. 
 
 In 1877, th 6 year after Mrs. Young left the Normal 
 School, it was closed by the board of education. Os- 
 tensibly the reason for closing it was that it was " grad- 
 uating more teachers than were needed," and that the 
 standard of teaching could be elevated by the examina- 
 tion system of admitting candidates to the schools. The 
 real reason for the closing of the school was that poli- 
 tics had again got possession of the situation and had 
 used this means of curtailing the influence of the public 
 schools. In spite of the efforts that had been made by 
 leaders in education to establish professional prepara- 
 tion for the teachers in Chicago, the board of educa- 
 tion was opposed to any system that was likely to 
 produce too great efficiency in the public schools.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF BUILDING A 
 CITY SCHOOL 
 
 TN 1876 Mrs. Young, unexpectedly to herself, was 
 -* elected principal of the Scammon School. This 
 position she held for three years, and then went to 
 the principalship of the Skinner, one of the three larg- 
 est schools in the city. In this place she remained until 
 she was made assistant superintendent in 1887. 
 
 The Skinner School was situated in a cosmopolitan 
 district on Aberdeen and Jackson streets, very near 
 Tilden Avenue. Many well-to-do people lived in it, 
 but one part was occupied by a rough, uncouth class of 
 Italians whose children were under no control what- 
 ever, and with no idea of respect nor what was due to 
 others. For a long time Mrs. Young hesitated about 
 taking the large school, but finally decided that she 
 could do it. Before making up her mind about the 
 place she went over the district from one end to an- 
 other, many times, until she was familiar with the 
 people and the activities of the community and with 
 what was demanded by them of the school. 
 
 When Mrs. Young came to the principalship women 
 had taken the greater number of all subordinate school 
 positions in the city. There were nearly a thousand 
 women teachers in the schools, half of the high-school 
 positions were held by women, and half of the prin- 
 cipals of elementary schools were women. The move- 
 ment of women into the school inaugurated during the 
 
 56
 
 Building a City School 57 
 
 war had gone on with increasing rapidity each year. 
 Practically every position except principal of high- 
 school and the superintendency had come to them. 
 
 Mrs. Young's place in the woman movement de- 
 mands further consideration because of its bearing on 
 the problems of education throughout the country. 
 Everywhere in America girls' and women's education 
 was being patterned on the basis of that given to men. 
 Women's colleges adopted curricula used in men's 
 colleges. In the intellectual training of women no 
 differences were made between mental capacities and 
 interests of the sexes. "The reason for pointing out this 
 fact here is that Mrs. Young took the work of educa- 
 tion at man's level and held as a standard of excellence 
 the demands and attainments set up by the schools at a 
 time when higher education was for men. For the 
 most part, all her work has been influenced by this 
 doctrine, early fixed in her character, of the essential 
 similarity of minds, whether in men or women. 
 
 In consequence of this viewpoint she has refused 
 to accept favors on account of her sex. x One of her 
 first acts as principal was to put herself on record as 
 being able to earn any honor given her. Women prin- 
 cipals at that time were holding positions without 
 having passed examinations for certificates, a practice 
 which had already been held up to ridicule by a con- 
 temporary educational writer. On the very first occa- 
 sion she came up for examination as principal. Her 
 experience as a high-school teacher stood her in good 
 stead as a preparation and she passed the examination, 
 standing first on the list of candidates. As Superin- 
 tendent Howland expressed it at the time, she held a
 
 58 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 certificate "by right and not by courtesy," and the 
 board of education passed a regulation then that all 
 future principals were to secure certificates through 
 examinations. 
 
 Another instance of this independent spirit of the 
 woman is related in connection with her election to 
 the chairmanship of a large committee composed of 
 principals. After the election and before the first 
 meeting, a friendly man principal offered, because of 
 her probable unfamiliarity with parliamentary prac- 
 tice, to carry the discussion for her, but she thanked 
 him and said she preferred to try it herself. When the 
 committee had completed its work the same gentleman 
 reported her direction of the discussions as remarkably 
 successful. 
 
 Her schools were noted for the best in current and 
 accepted educational procedure. She had a masterful 
 grasp upon the problems of the day, and she drew 
 upon the leaders in school work throughout the country. 
 She was not a " reformer." While full of the most 
 advanced ideas of the time, she was always unwilling 
 to impose them upon others. She did not wish them 
 accepted unless understood and indorsed by those 
 working with her. She was never radical, and struck 
 out no new and extravagant paths, but accepted and 
 utilized the best ideals and practices as she found them. 
 At the same time she refined and humanized these 
 practices to fit her own teachers and pupils. 
 
 One may quite truly say of her at this period in her 
 life that she represented the sanely feminine conserv- 
 ator of forces, as she found them, rather than the 
 innovator or reformer in school and society. Her teach-
 
 Building a City School 59 
 
 ing and reading represented the solid elements in cul- 
 ture and educational theory, for as yet she had not 
 attempted the experimental and the speculative either 
 in thinking or in the management of her school. Yet 
 so keen and clear was her grasp of the problems of 
 the day that Mr. Rowland, then superintendent of 
 schools, held her judgment in very high regard and 
 consulted her on vital matters. 
 
 But it is necessary to see more than a conservative 
 principal in Mrs. Young's work at the head of a school. 
 Her achievement as a principal rested mainly on her 
 organization and her management of the school. In 
 the sense in which we use these terms in modern city 
 education no such things existed as organization and 
 administration, or they existed only in rudimentary 
 forms. They are the result of more recent develop- 
 ment and work in large city schools. There was then 
 no place to go for models in directing large school 
 plants. Large schools already existed, but they were 
 rather loose aggregations of parts, and had little 
 definite cohesion. 
 
 The rapid growth of the city, with its cosmopolitan 
 population, had brought together all sorts of children 
 and thrown them into the schools. Mrs. Young's 
 objection to the use of the term "melting pot" in 
 describing the work of the public school was an out- 
 growth of the efforts she made to handle in a definite 
 form the various elements in her own school. Today 
 we think nothing of handling a school representing a 
 dozen different languages and races, but at that period 
 the problem was a new one and one concerning which 
 many most intelligent persons entertained grave doubt
 
 60 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 of an adequate solution. To make the difficulty still 
 greater, this was the beginning of the attempt to sub- 
 stitute for the " rod," as a means of managing children, 
 school government based on intelligent and sympathetic 
 appeal to children. Mrs. Young rigidly opposed 
 corporal punishment as a basis of control, and notices 
 circulated to the teachers of her school from her office 
 requested "hands off" in the management of the 
 school. 
 
 While others were teaching and preaching " democ- 
 racy and freedom" with blare and great noise, the 
 Skinner Elementary School in 1885 was carrying on its 
 work with an eye to the independence and cooperation 
 of each individual child and teacher within its walls. 
 Class-work was organized in such a way that each one 
 felt himself a contributor to the whole. In arithmetic, 
 for example, Mrs. Young's method was distinctively 
 democratic. Instead of having " a method " of solving 
 problems, a common practice among principals in teach- 
 ing this subject, she had as many methods as there were 
 teachers in her school. " No one can work in another's 
 harness," was a favorite expression of hers to her 
 teachers, and as a consequence she insisted that each 
 one was to make her own contributions to the life and 
 interests of the school. Visitors remarked that they 
 found as much value in going through the rooms of the 
 school as they could have found had they gone to many 
 schools, because each teacher worked out her subjects 
 in her own way. 
 
 In faculty meetings Mrs. Young insisted on discus- 
 sions giving free play to ideas of each person, and 
 never attempted to dominate the minds and independ-
 
 Building & City School 61 
 
 ence of the teachers. She was always exceedingly 
 generous in her appreciation of new ideas and acknowl- 
 edged her obligations to the teachers who presented 
 them to her and the school. "What new ideas have 
 you today in this work?" was a common question of 
 hers, and the person called upon for such help felt that 
 she was really a part of the creative force of the school. 
 
 Mrs. Young's school stood out in the community as 
 an influence in affairs of the people. She had become 
 thoroughly acquainted with her neighborhood and tried 
 to serve it. Former Mayor Harrison, Sr., remarked 
 on several occasions that this school was the most 
 effective social institution in the city. The demands 
 upon the schools to meet the needs of society in a more 
 effective way, which had been growing for several years 
 in intensity, found an open statement in the acts of the 
 legislature of Illinois in 1883 and 1887 "to secure to all 
 children the benefits of an elementary education." Mrs. 
 Young had been doing all she could long before the pas- 
 sage of these acts to make her teachers feel the responsi- 
 bility for keeping children in school. She had attempted 
 to follow up the children and keep in touch with them 
 and their homes in order to hold them in school until 
 they were old enough to meet the demands of society 
 upon them. In the work she did in her schools to 
 secure to children the benefits of elementary education 
 she was a pioneer in the vocational guidance of children. 
 
 It is easy now to look back in the light of present 
 school administration and see the work of that time as 
 incomplete and transitory. But when one sees how 
 slowly, out of prejudices, traditions, mixture of national 
 and race elements, and varied interests of the city,
 
 62 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 school organization has gradually been wrought, one 
 can appreciate the enormity of the task of that period 
 in trying to put a public school into active and effective 
 touch with the community. There is no doubt that 
 Mrs. Young made her school stand out prominently 
 as a social force and as a well-organized institution, 
 because visitors, both from within and without the city, 
 were numerous and reported the great value of the 
 work as they found it. In her school she held firmly 
 to high ideals of scholarship. She was rigid with her- 
 self and required a high standard of efficiency from all 
 with whom she was associated. Her teachers believed 
 in her and were loyal to the school. 
 
 As in her work in the practice school, Mrs. Young 
 came into intimate contact with politics and with 
 political methods in the city schools. A few instances 
 of this contact will suffice to show that she learned to 
 deal with political forces at this early period. Shortly 
 after leaving the Normal School for a principalship 
 she saw the Normal closed by the board of education. 
 As already noted, the school was said to be an un- 
 necessary expense. " Influences," evident in the move- 
 ment, pushed it through over the protests of educational 
 leaders. In this act Mrs. Young gained a new lesson 
 as to what schools had to expect from politics in school 
 boards, and years later she found the fruits of closing 
 the Normal in Chicago's poorly prepared teachers. 
 
 Mrs. Young also faced the necessity of selling her 
 pay-warrants for several years at a discount because 
 the board of education had no money to provide for 
 payment of the teachers. As late as 1881 teachers 
 were compelled to accept whatever merchants were
 
 Building a City School 63 
 
 willing to give them for these monthly warrants. It 
 was to the credit of the Skinner School that business 
 men in the vicinity bought the warrants of the teachers 
 of that school at their face value. Politics and poor 
 management were alone accountable for such a condi- 
 tion in the finances of the schools. 
 
 One of the close friends of Mrs. Young, Superin- 
 tendent Pickard, was ousted from that position through 
 the same kind of policy. " Influences " brought into the 
 assistant superintendency a man from the outside for 
 the purpose of ridding Chicago of Mr. Pickard. This 
 man made life miserable for the superintendent and 
 later supplanted him, but was from the first wholly 
 incompetent and lasted in the position barely two years. 
 Another instance of political influence which came close 
 to Mrs. Young during the period of her school prin- 
 cipalship was in her own school. Her engineer had 
 proved incompetent and unreliable, and she had asked 
 for his removal. A president of the board of education 
 interceded for him and attempted to force her to retain 
 him in the position. The character of Mrs. Young was 
 shown very clearly in her reply to this demand: "I 
 shall do what is best for the Skinner School," and this 
 reply settled the matter in favor of efficiency and justice 
 in the management of the school. 
 
 Scholarship and classical culture were making a last 
 stand against science and utilitarianism in education 
 during this period. Mrs. Young was deeply interested 
 in both sides of this issue, but during the period of her 
 principalship she emphasized the former as an ideal, 
 both for her pupils and her teachers. Superintendent 
 Howland was a scholar interested in literary and aca-
 
 64 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 demic ideals, and his influence on Mrs. Young was 
 marked during this time. Among other evidences of 
 her interest in literary and classical culture, the estab- 
 lishment by Mrs. Young of a " club " for the study 
 of English grammar was in direct line with this tend- 
 ency. It met every two weeks, at first in the school but 
 later at her home. From reports gathered from mem- 
 bers of that club it is evident that the leader tried 
 harder to inspire her teachers with a love of learning 
 than in a mere correct use of grammar. From gram- 
 mar the club soon branched into the study of Shake- 
 speare and the modern dramas. Plays were read and 
 presented by members taking each a part for the occa- 
 sion. Greek drama, Dante, and other forms of great 
 literature were studied and discussed. Mrs. Young 
 made it a practice to suggest books to be reported on 
 by members of the club. Long after she left the princi- 
 palship the club took up psychology, ethics, and philoso- 
 phy, work in which Mrs. Young became more and 
 more interested. 
 
 The study of English became an important part of 
 the curriculum both in high and elementary ^schools 
 during this period. In 1883 Superintendent George 
 Rowland says in his report to the Board of Education 
 regarding the high school: 
 
 I have often thought, though I have never found my idea 
 fully realized, that a course in English might be prepared and 
 successfully carried out, which should be worthy to take its 
 place by the side of our classical courses; which should include 
 both a critical study of our language, and a large and thought- 
 ful reading of some of our best authors, familiarizing the pupils 
 with all the classic study so needful for the appreciation of our 
 prose and poetical writers. With this should be a thorough and
 
 Building a City School 65 
 
 systematic training in composition. . The usual study of rhetoric 
 seems comparatively futile, save in the knowledge acquired of a 
 few terms, and the time devoted to English literature is often 
 largely expended upon the history of unimportant and forgot- 
 ten authors, with little appreciation or knowledge of our real 
 literature. 
 
 Mrs. Young took a deep interest in placing the best 
 literature in the hands of elementary-school children. 
 She was not satisfied that they should read the text- 
 books, which often contained meaningless material and 
 little of the best authors. Several years later she out- 
 lined in an address before the National Education 
 Association her notion of the kind of literature to be 
 placed in the course for lower schools, and her ideas 
 expressed at that time were the fruitage of her years 
 as principal. She secured permission from one of the 
 large publishers to reprint some of the classics for 
 supplementary reading in her school. This was one 
 of the earliest attempts to give children in the grades 
 the benefit of the best literature. In connection with 
 the reading she developed the idea that children should 
 read for meaning, that there should not be the two or 
 three years of parrot-like mumbling of meaningless 
 symbols in the early grades of her school. In provid- 
 ing a library for her school from money obtained 
 through giving concerts and from donations by Judge 
 Skinner, she further enlarged the opportunity for 
 children to become acquainted with good literature. 
 This was one of the first school libraries in the schools 
 of the city. 
 
 In other respects the curriculum of the Skinner 
 School partook of the same advanced character as
 
 66 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 reading and literature. As John D. Philbrick pointed 
 out in 1885 : 
 
 The old standard subjects of instruction are uniformly re- 
 tained, namely, reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, grammar, 
 geography, and history of the United States: comprising the 
 trivium, or three R's, of the ancient school for the people, and 
 the quadrivium, which is the accession of a more advanced era, 
 and yet an era preceding the modern school revival, dating back 
 about fifty years. The last half-century has witnessed a very 
 considerable increase in the subjects of instruction. These sub- 
 jects are .object- teaching, singing, drawing, gymnastics, vocal 
 culture, English literature, the metric system, physical geography, 
 physiology (including anatomy and hygiene), geometry and 
 mensuration, bookkeeping, astronomy, the German language, 
 Constitution of the United States, general history, sewing, and 
 perhaps some others.* 
 
 Such an array of subjects gave rise to the demand 
 for "shortening and enriching" the curriculum. Of 
 the older subjects thus enumerated, Mrs. Young secured 
 most satisfactory results. Her work was valuable not 
 merely from the point of view of the scholars, but as 
 an epitome of the conflict of the old and new curricula 
 as pointed out by Philbrick. By this work the three R's 
 were developed to the highest standard of effective- 
 ness, a condition brought about by the necessity of 
 showing their right to be continued in the schools in the 
 face of the demands of newer and more modern sub- 
 jects. As already pointed out, Mrs. Young was a 
 conservator of the best of the time, and in the matter 
 of the curriculum she brought out the very best in the 
 material found in the course of study. A brief state- 
 ment of her work in this direction will make the point 
 clear. 
 
 * City School Systems in the United States. U. S. Bureau of Educa- 
 tion, Washington, 1885.
 
 Building a City School 67 
 
 In penmanship she broke away from the practice, 
 common in the lower grades, of having the children 
 print, and placed writing in every grade of the school, 
 introducing pen and ink from the first. "Arm move- 
 ment" was practiced, which with the use of pen and 
 ink overcame the cramped pencil work of the lower 
 grades complained of so generally at the time. Prizes 
 offered for the best penmanship in the schools of the 
 city were awarded to the Skinner School each year of 
 her principalship and for the year following her 
 withdrawal. 
 
 Arithmetic was one of the subjects which she took 
 most interest in and worked on hardest. It delighted 
 her heart to find a child quick in figures. Often she 
 would step into a room, call the attention of the chil- 
 dren for a minute, ask one or two questions in arith- 
 metic pertaining to their grade, receive a quick answer, 
 and pass on to another room. She laid stress on 
 "mental" arithmetic and on work having a practical 
 bearing on the other interests. She particularly dis- 
 couraged assignment of home work because the child 
 needed help of the teacher and in home work he did 
 not get this, nor could it be told how much was his 
 own endeavor. Great emphasis was placed on the 
 individuality of method in arithmetic, each teacher and 
 each pupil being urged to use the method that served 
 him the best. 
 
 Grammar Mrs. Young taught herself. The course 
 was given in the eighth grade and emphasized the 
 understanding and correct use of language. In history 
 two or three distinctive features of her method need 
 attention. Since the upper grades in her school were
 
 68 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 taught departmentally, a decided innovation then, the 
 work could be more highly organized. A miniature 
 house of congress gave opportunity for the necessary 
 instruction in the United States Constitution; debates 
 were used to good effect by children, often drawing on 
 the aid of prominent men from the outside; and sev- 
 eral books used as sources of material gave the children 
 opportunity to select and judge in their study. 
 
 Of the newer subjects singing, drawing, clay- 
 modeling, and gymnastics much was made in the 
 school. "Shortening and enriching" the course of 
 study appealed to Mrs. Young only in so far as they 
 added life and interest to the work of the children and 
 teachers in the school. Drawing, which at the time 
 was regarded as a bridge between academic work and 
 the "practical" life, was taught in every grade. It 
 had been optional in the schools until 1884 and was 
 then placed on the regular list of subjects to be taught. 
 So well was the work done that the Skinner School 
 was awarded the "W. K. Sullivan Prize" in drawing 
 each year, over all the schools of the city. One way 
 of making drawing effective was in having pupils use 
 it in all their work as a means of illustration, giving 
 rise to the term " graphic recitation." 
 
 In addition to the regular work of the school as 
 ordinarily regarded then, the physical welfare and com- 
 fort of children and teachers were carefully guarded. 
 Both ventilation and lighting were subjects of great 
 concern by the leaders in education. The " fan " system 
 and steam heating had both been introduced into the 
 newer schools. But Mrs. Young decided that only 
 "window" ventilation could be made thoroughly ade-
 
 Building City School 69 
 
 quate, and she devised a scheme of using a board 
 inserted at the bottom of the window for this purpose. 
 She likewise studied in detail the system of heating 
 until she was as competent as a trained engineer to run 
 the machinery for heating the school. Wherever pos- 
 sible the children were arranged so as to get the most 
 value from the light of the room. She was one of the 
 first to follow the suggestions given by eye specialists 
 as to protection of children's eyes in school work. 
 
 In common with educators of the day, Mrs. Young 
 believed that children came to school to work and not 
 to play. The kindergarten influence had not yet pene- 
 trated school discipline. Much was made, therefore, 
 of gymnastics, but play was confined to the hours out- 
 side of school time. On the playground she was active 
 for cooperation and kept a close watch over the children 
 in their activities. 
 
 Very little handwork was done at this time in the 
 elementary schools, and manual training did not make 
 its appearance until the very close of the period. Mrs. 
 Young gave some attention to handwork, but she had 
 not yet seen the value of this form of education. In 
 this respect she was not unlike other educators in ele- 
 mentary education. Superintendent Howland did not 
 rank handwork with mental work. In his report to the 
 Board of Education he says: 
 
 Our schools are to educate, not servants, but citizens; and 
 whenever the darning and frying, the starching and stewing 
 become important parts of the school work, the wealthier classes 
 will send to private schools, and the puhlic school, to which 
 we look for the preparation of our children for responsible 
 places in our business and social life, will become but an indus- 
 trial school for cooks and second girls, instead of intelligent men
 
 70 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 and women ready to act well their parts in whatever pL 'its 
 their inclinations or necessities may lead them to engage. 
 
 Because of her early training, Mrs. Young ne\ * 
 accepted quite this extreme view, but that she was ac. - 
 demic and emphasized the literary side of the curric- 
 ulum is evident from the character of her school. More 
 and more she saw the necessity for using all of the 
 energy and capacity of her children, and her school 
 kept up with the movement of introducing such sub- 
 jects as were considered possible for that purpose. 
 Drawing and clay-modeling were the ones most gener- 
 ally accepted, and they were both taught in her school. 
 
 No one was ever in doubt in her school as to the 
 position Mrs. Young held in matters of conduct. She 
 meant business always. In discipline she was severe 
 but just, permitting no half-way measures, yet allowing 
 each one as much freedom as he knew how to make 
 use of in his work. Noise never troubled her in a room 
 if by it children were getting something done. " Her 
 power to know what was going on within the school 
 was uncanny," says one of her former teachers. Appar- 
 ently without effort she always knew where trouble was 
 or where things were moving smoothly. 
 
 Her severity was intellectual. Beneath it all was 
 the deepest sympathy and humaneness. She felt her 
 own incapacity to express adequately her feelings, and 
 on many an occasion asked some of her intimate friends 
 in her school to do some mission of kindliness because 
 she had not the power to do it herself. If a teacher 
 or a pupil was in trouble she was the first to help in 
 some direct or indirect way. The loyalty felt by all 
 members of the school for its interests was one of the
 
 Building a City School 71 
 
 most noteworthy parts of the old Skinner School. As 
 in all the other positions she held, Mrs. Young bound 
 the members of this school to her as life-long friends. 
 Her memory for names of children persisted long 
 beyond their school days, and she has been known to 
 recall instantly the name of some urchin of Skinner 
 School days in the bearded man. Two pictures of her 
 as she appeared then, one drawn by a teacher, the other 
 by a child, are indicative of the spirit of the woman 
 who could thus inspire and hold friendships. The 
 teacher wrote : 
 
 It is very rare, I think, that one finds a woman who will do 
 as much for other women as Mrs. Young did for her teachers. 
 Ever mindful of our comfort and pleasure, she suggested that 
 we spend an evening once in two weeks at her home for our 
 club instead of the schoolroom, giving us an opportunity to go 
 home, shake the dust of the schoolroom from our clothes, and 
 feel freshened for our evening's work. 
 
 In appearance, when I first knew her, Mrs. Young was 
 slight, dignified, of a rather grave countenance, wearing a black 
 dress with white linen collar and cuffs, her black hair brushed 
 smoothly down her face, making quite a striking appearance. 
 Her manner was courteous and pleasing and she soon won the 
 respect of her pupils. Although her expression was somewhat 
 severe when in repose, when she talked and became interested 
 in the explanation of a lesson, her face lighted up and became 
 very fascinating and almost beautiful. 
 
 The other picture stands out clearly and gives her 
 power with children: 
 
 . . . When I was a little girl about ten years of age I went to 
 the old Scammon School on Monroe Street. Our principal, 
 Ella Flagg Young, gave me a tortoise-shell-handled penknife as 
 a present for making two grades in one year. I prized the knife 
 greatly and kept it until I had grown up. I always call her our 
 principal in speaking of my school days for I loved her dearly
 
 *j 2 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 then and still love her. I wish you could see her as she stands 
 before me in my mind's eyes; a little bit of a woman, about 
 five feet tall, all vim, push, and go-ahead. My, how she would 
 make those boys fly; she with her jet black hair parted in the 
 middle, combed back smooth, and her clean olive skin and even, 
 white teeth. She always dressed in black, very plain. And her 
 eyes, such eyes that looked you through and through. When 
 she was transferred to the Skinner School I asked her if she 
 would allow me to go there without a permit from the board 
 of education, but she told me she could not, and as my mother 
 was always too busy to go and I was not old enough to know 
 how to go for myself, I consequently lost all interest in the 
 school when we lost our beloved principal, and I quit after 
 going all those interesting years. I lost my beautiful little knife, 
 too, the only thing I had to remember our principal by, except 
 her picture engraved in my heart, which will last forever. 
 
 Her power as a principal was thus not merely a 
 great organizing ability, nor an insight into educational 
 needs and educational problems, neither was it wholly 
 in her incomparable capacity for work; but rather in 
 her fine appreciation of efforts on the part of others. 
 She was unselfish, loyal to her friends, undemonstrative 
 in her decisions and appreciations, firm for the right, 
 and, above all, imbued with a broad and deep love for 
 children. Her school was found always a united, 
 cooperating group, finely organized to live and work 
 on a high plane.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION FROM 1887 TO 1899 AS 
 SHOWN IN THE WORK. OF MRS. YO'UNG 
 
 ""1T7"E received a decided shock," said one of Mrs. 
 Young's teachers then in the Skinner School, 
 "when Mr. Brenan, a member of the Board, told us 
 that our principal was too big a woman for her present 
 place and was wanted for a bigger job." With two 
 other persons she was elected to the position of 
 Assistant Superintendent in 1887. 
 
 Her election to this position was not the first time 
 she had been considered for a bigger job. Mrs. Young 
 had been growing rapidly in her grasp of educational 
 affairs, and she had become one of the most trust- 
 worthy as well as keenest persons in the system. It is 
 desirable to review some of the persons and influences 
 entering into her life and thought up to the time of 
 her appointment as assistant superintendent. She had 
 come into contact with one after another of the promi- 
 nent leaders in education in the city and country, whose 
 points of view she eagerly grasped and made her own. 
 As we have already pointed out, she had been academic 
 and formal at the opening of her career as a teacher, 
 relying religiously on the training she had received; 
 but by 1887 she had changed to an open and free mind, 
 quick to see all sides of every question. 
 
 Of the persons influencing her professional life 
 during the early years, the first was W. H. Wells, 
 superintendent of schools when she began to teach. 
 
 73
 
 74 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 \ 
 To him she owed her earliest interest in the movement 
 
 to modernize the schools through object-teaching. Mr. 
 Wells' faith in science and in systematic organization 
 of the curriculum was shared at an early date by Mrs. 
 Young. At about the same period she came into con- 
 tact with the intellectual influence of William T. Harris, 
 for many years superintendent of the schools of St. 
 Louis. Mrs. Young says his reports, which were 
 remarkable educational documents, were the first pro- 
 fessional literature she ever read. Harris undoubtedly 
 had a marked influence on her philosophical point of 
 view. His was one of the most effective attempts to 
 introduce the doctrine of Hegel into this country and 
 apply it to educational theory. His writings were an 
 outgrowth of Hegelian idealism. The reports which 
 he wrote were based on this philosophy, and Mrs. 
 Young was so diligent a student that her thinking and 
 writing show its influence. 
 
 Another important influence on her educational 
 career was that exerted by Superintendent Pickard, 
 with whom she was closely associated during his entire 
 administration in the Chicago schools. He was keen 
 and clear in his own thinking and could not help influ- 
 encing people with whom he came in contact. His 
 interest in Mrs. Young's professional work was more 
 than passing, as shown by his efforts to keep her in the 
 Normal School. Pickard was one of the best organ- 
 izers that the schools of Chicago have possessed. In 
 the matter of organization his greatness lay in his 
 ability to use intelligence in system. He refused to 
 allow the schools to become formal and dead through 
 a rigid system of gradation and classification, Mrs.
 
 School Administration from 1887 to 1899 75 
 
 Young has always shown in a marked degree the effects 
 of Pickard's teaching in this direction and has used 
 system as a means and not as a final result of efforts at 
 improvement. 
 
 To Superintendent Rowland, who was at the head 
 of the high school when she graduated and began her 
 teaching and when she went back into the department 
 of practice, Mrs. Young owed much of her interest in 
 fine scholarship. His culture and his training in class- 
 ical literature always appealed to her. In her paper 
 before the National Education Association in 1896 on 
 literature in the grades she shows very clearly the 
 effects of this association by her interest in literary 
 scholarship. She has always referred to the work of 
 Mr. Howland as the most significant in Chicago schools 
 in developing a right sense of language and its relation 
 to grammar teaching. 
 
 But the real teacher of Mrs. Young during these 
 interesting years was life itself. Systematic study and 
 unwavering service to the schools of the city gave her 
 strength and poise and self-confidence. She was not a 
 servile imitator nor follower of anyone, but had inter- 
 preted for herself problems as they had arisen in the 
 course of duty. She says of her own thinking that for 
 many years she was a close student of mathematics 
 because of its exactness and clearness of demonstra- 
 tion. But there came a time when she realized that 
 its exactness was its own limitation; that it was too 
 mechanical. From the study of mathematics she turned 
 to that of human nature, where free spirit could be 
 followed in its own self-determined course in realizing 
 itself through growth. To a remarkable degree she
 
 7 6 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 had developed faith in other people. Hers was the 
 true teaching spirit; the confidence in other persons 
 that begets self-confidence. Above all else, she became 
 constructive in her thinking and her work. In an ad- 
 dress delivered in 1887, she says: " A lecturer who has 
 nothing but a battering ram for existing systems, thus 
 throwing the educational world into a state of chaos, 
 would do well before taking the field, to prepare some- 
 thing definite to suggest in place of the things to be 
 demolished." 
 
 Thus Mrs. Young entered upon the work which 
 engaged her for twelve years. She had grown into a 
 commanding personage in school affairs in Chicago, 
 and from henceforth her influence is felt in growing 
 measure in the educational policy of the city. Her 
 appointment came at a time when the superintending 
 force of the city was being reconstructed. The follow- 
 ing report shows the kind of reorganization being 
 undertaken : 
 
 First. All educational departments should be under the con- 
 trol and direction of the superintendency, not only in theory, but 
 in fact. In this category I would embrace music, drawing, 
 German, and physical culture, as well as the ordinary features 
 of the course of instruction. 
 
 Second. The superintendency should be enlarged by the 
 addition of at least two assistant superintendents, in order to 
 reduce and subdivide the present enormous labor of visiting 
 schools which rests on three earnest and faithful men. 
 
 I believe . . . there would spring better methods of instruc- 
 tion, better discipline in the corps of teachers, better and higher 
 attainments among the teachers, better supervision of all the 
 departments of special instruction, and, last but not least, bet- 
 ter and more mature and confident advice and assistance to the 
 members of the Board in fixing the course of instruction and in
 
 School Administration from 1887 to i8gg 77 
 
 adopting textbooks and other educational appliances. (Report of 
 Board of Education, 1885, PP- 19-20.) 
 
 In reorganizing the superintendency in accordance 
 with this plan, two of the new superintendents were 
 women. A woman had been made a member of the 
 board in 1889 because of the demand made by women's 
 organizations based on the grounds of the prominence 
 of woman in the teaching profession, though this was 
 not accomplished without opposition. 
 
 The first and most obvious reason for increase of 
 the supervising force lay in the growth of schools and 
 the inability of the superintendent to cover the ground. 
 There had been a constant growth in the area to be 
 supervised and in the numbers of pupils and teachers. 
 In 1887 there were over twelve hundred teachers and 
 principals, and all of the supervising was done by the 
 superintendent and two assistant superintendents with 
 the aid of special teachers in subjects like music, draw- 
 ing, and German. In 1889 
 
 The territory embraced in thirty-three entire school districts, 
 and in parts of eight others, was declared annexed to Chicago. 
 In this territory were over one hundred schoolhouses, cared for 
 by an equal number of engineers and janitors, and accommodat- 
 ing over thirty thousand pupils. There were nearly eight 
 hundred teachers employed in its schools, and these schools were 
 supervised by about two hundred and thirty school officers. 
 (Report of President of Board. Proceedings, 1890, p. 12.) 
 
 But a more important, reason for the increase in 
 supervision was to. be found in the character of the 
 teaching force. Complaints of the system of provid- 
 ing teachers were chronic. In 1885 the superintendent 
 says that the high-school graduate " is well-nigh help-
 
 78 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 less when first placed in a room of fifty or sixty pupils." 
 The cadet system placed about seventy new teachers 
 in the schools each year who had received no training 
 for their work. 
 
 If the superintending force were sufficient to allow one of 
 the assistants, perhaps, to call these together three or four times 
 a week for instruction in the plainer principles and methods of 
 education, and specially to supervise the application of these 
 principles and methods in the daily work of the schoolroom, 
 an earlier and higher success would undoubtedly be secured ; and 
 a great waste of effort on the part of both teacher and pupil 
 be avoided. The instruction would give a new life to the teach- 
 ing, and the teaching assist to a better comprehension of the 
 instruction. (Report of Board of Education, 1885, pp. 52-53.) 
 
 After the close of the Normal School several years 
 previously, the teaching force gradually deteriorated. 
 Graduates from the high schools were admitted with 
 no preparation for teaching aside from the academic 
 courses, at first on an examination, but later on a grade 
 of ninety per cent in scholarship. Examinations for 
 admission to outside teachers were very superficial, 
 hardly exceeding the requirements given for entrance 
 to the first year of the high school. This deplorable 
 condition had its explanation in the politics which, as 
 already noted, closed the Normal School. It was not 
 to be wondered at that critics found Chicago teaching 
 about the poorest in any city in the country. J. M. 
 Rice, writing on the subject in 1893, sa ^ there was a 
 very small percentage of teachers who were Normal 
 graduates, and qualifications were very low. The work 
 he found unscientific and on a low standard. 
 
 Some of the teaching was by far the most absurd I ever wit- 
 nessed. The amount of objective work is extremely limited,
 
 School Administration from 1887 to 1899 79 
 
 even in the lower grades, and the sciences are not included in 
 the curriculum. The education of teachers after appointment 
 is devolved on the superintendent and his assistants. In Chi- 
 cago, however, but little has been done by them, thus far, sys- 
 tematically to instruct the teachers in educational methods and 
 principles. (Public School Systems of the U. S., 1893, P I 7O-) 
 
 Rice's article stirred up wholesale criticism, but we 
 find the board and the superintendent making excuses 
 or defending the situation. 
 
 The president of the board thus expresses himself: 
 
 Much has been said in the public press about incompetent 
 and inefficient teachers in our public schools, but I was much 
 pleased to learn from the special reports required under our 
 rules to be made by the superintendent of schools and his assist- 
 ants to the committee on school management just before the 
 close of the school year, so that incompetent or inefficient 
 teachers may not be reappointed by the Board; that last year, 
 out of over 3,500 teachers in our public schools, only the names 
 of about twenty incompetent teachers were presented by the 
 superintendent for the consideration of this committee. Surely 
 this speaks well for the extraordinary ability and efficiency of 
 our teachers. I do not think any other city could make such a 
 record, but perhaps the standard of our superintendents does 
 not quite come up to the expectations of the members of the 
 board or of the public press. (Report of Board of Education, 
 1893.) 
 
 Later in the same report, the superintendent points 
 out that there had been a great amount of criticism 
 about the schools made by both competent and incom- 
 petent critics, saying that "after several months of in- 
 vestigation and inspection of every department of the 
 school work a few changes have been made." (Ibid., 
 p. 58.)
 
 8o Ella Flagg Young 
 
 In a teachers' meeting in Chicago shortly after this, 
 Mrs. Young stated that 
 
 A few weeks ago, if I had been told that the old-time recita- 
 tion in history, formal question and memorized answer, was still 
 to be found in Chicago schools, I would have resented the 
 slander. But I can not deny the testimony of my own eyes 
 and ears. Lately I have actually listened to recitations of just 
 that kind, and in the fifth, and sixth, grade rooms, too, where, of 
 all places, they ought not to be found. 
 
 The failure of the teaching body was largely due to 
 the fact that conditions and demands were rapidly 
 changing and the teachers were not forced to prepare 
 for the new work. As noted in the last chapter, the 
 ideal of educational excellence had been academic and 
 literary. The work along these lines had been empha- 
 sized to an extent that had shut out the growing no- 
 tions of science, art, and construction. While the course 
 of study had been simplified, and language and litera- 
 ture had replaced, in large measure, the dry-as-dust 
 work of the grades, there had not been a corresponding 
 growth of knowledge on the part of teachers of the new 
 demands made for activities as parts of education. 
 
 The needs for improvement were so urgent that in 
 1893 a Teachers' Training Class was organized and 
 put in charge of two instructors who gave their entire 
 time to the work of fitting young women for the grades. 
 In the " class," which at first ran for only half a year 
 but later was extended to a whole year's work, Mr. 
 Rowland's recommendation that assistant superinten- 
 dents be required to lecture to the young teachers on 
 educational principles and methods was at last put into 
 operation. Here Mrs. Young came back into the work
 
 School Administration from 1887 to 1899 8 1 
 
 of helping to prepare teachers for the schools by giv- 
 ing lectures on psychology and education. 
 
 The consequences of poorly trained teachers showed 
 themselves in a more vital way in changing the course 
 of study. In 1893 there began a strenuous fight in and 
 out of school on " fads." At first thought this fight may 
 seem to have little connection with increased supervi- 
 sion or a deteriorating teaching body, but as a matter 
 of fact the fight is a logical and necessary outcome of 
 both problems. Of course the popular cry against 
 " fads " usually may mean anything whatever, but back 
 of the demands at that time for a return to simpler 
 forms of instruction there lay legitimate grounds. We 
 have already noted the cry set up for " shortening and 
 enriching the curriculum." As the untrained teachers 
 became less and less competent to keep up with the 
 growing demands of modern practices, there came to be 
 greater dependence upon special teachers and trained 
 supervision. We have already seen how Mrs. Young 
 as principal had fought for scholarship and freedom 
 among her teachers. She felt more keenly than most 
 leaders of the period this tendency of the schools to 
 depend upon the specialists for the new subjects that 
 were becoming popular, and she felt that the welfare 
 of the schools depended primarily upon the intelligence 
 and independence of teachers, and therefore devoted 
 more time and energy to this problem in her school 
 than to all others. In spite of the work of individual 
 principals, however, the special teachers became promi- 
 nent in the schools, and their work was necessarily em- 
 phasized in proportion to their ability to present it. 
 Art, music, physical culture, German, all received direct
 
 82 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 attention by trained specialists. Mrs. Young stated 
 this point in connection with another subject in an ad- 
 dress in 1899. She says: 
 
 Have you ever thought of the difference between the con- 
 ditions surrounding kindergartens, manual-training rooms, and 
 vacation schools, and those surrounding the regular school- 
 rooms? The former were established in recognition of the 
 failure of the regular school to meet certain needs. If they 
 should merely duplicate the old, the very reason for their exis- 
 tence would proclaim them failures. They must be, not varia- 
 tions on the established schools, but radically different. The 
 more innovations they introduce, the nearer they fulfil their 
 mission. The public school, on the other hand, is bound to the 
 past. Back of it are thousands of parents, demanding that their 
 children shall give evidence from day to day that they are 
 learning what their parents before them learned. Back of it 
 are the taxpayers, feeling the burden of taxation and demand- 
 ing that- the simple, inexpensive curriculum of long ago be 
 substituted for the extravagant course of study of today. Back 
 of it are the traditions of the school, which made its life some- 
 thing distinct, aloof from the life of society. In this environ- 
 ment are the voices calling to the teaching corps to act as the 
 great conservator of a past theory of culture. 
 
 The consequence of this separation of the newer sub- 
 jects under specialists as supervisors was to pull them 
 apart and leave the three R's behind, losing even the 
 strength they had acquired during the previous period 
 of growth. 
 
 And then the fight on "fads" broke forth. The 
 school report for 1893 shows the effects of various 
 criticisms on conditions in the schools. German was 
 eliminated from the primary grades. Music was uni- 
 fied by the adoption of a graded course of books, and 
 all technical study of the subject was eliminated from 
 the early years of the school. Drawing, likewise, was 
 curtailed in primary grades, and clay-modeling, pasting,
 
 School Administration from 1887 to i8gg 83 
 
 and paper-cutting dropped. The president of the board 
 in 1894 says: 
 
 The warfare against " fads " has resulted in their elimination 
 from our schools. No longer are scholars required to defile their 
 hands, without strengthening their intellects, by the creation of 
 mud pies or clay-modeling. Paper-cutting and all kindred 
 innocuous, time-consuming fads have, with their authors, disap- 
 peared from the common-school service of the city. Upon the 
 superintendent and his assistants there should be lodged no 
 censure, either for the creation or maintenance of any of the 
 fads mentioned. Their paternity is chargeable to a few mem- 
 bers of the board who have resigned or whose terms of office 
 have expired, and whose authority was more potential than that 
 asserted by the superintendent and his aids. In the kindergarten 
 department clay is used for the purpose of illustration and in 
 object studies, and its use there is proper for the reason that no 
 books whatever are used, the work being of a creative and con- 
 structive nature. The horizon of drawing has been circum- 
 scribed and within the limits of its present confinement good 
 results have been obtained. Considerable money has been saved 
 to the school service by reason of the abatement of the fads, 
 and is now being used in teaching the children things which will 
 be of service to them when their school days are over, and when 
 they are called upon to earn a living. (Report of Board of Edu- 
 cation 1894. P- J 6.) 
 
 All her experience in the schools of Chicago led 
 Mrs. Young to feel the need of well-trained teachers. 
 Conditions as she found them in her wider field of 
 supervision convinced her that the most important work 
 of the assistant superintendent was in helping to secure 
 such training. We find most of her energy directed 
 along this line during the twelve years of her office in 
 the schools. First of all she took up the work opened 
 by the new Teachers' Training Class, as already noted. 
 On every occasion she talked and lectured to the teach- 
 ers on the desirability of better preparation. She
 
 84 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 carried along the club organized years before and 
 increased its scope by other efforts at improvement. 
 The institutes which had been a part of the system of 
 teacher training for many years she made a real force 
 in that service; one writer says they were enjoyed 
 because the leader herself was the best learner in attend- 
 ance. Besides her own efforts in the monthly meetings 
 she secured the best available talent to help in directing 
 these institutes. William James, of Harvard, and 
 John Dewey, of The University of Chicago, both came 
 to help her. That she succeeded in some measure in 
 bringing her teachers to a higher level of appreciation 
 for their work is evident from the reports coming both 
 from individuals and official sources. James said at 
 the time of one of his lectures before the teachers: 
 
 I came expecting to find bare walls, and I find pictures and 
 statuary adorning the school rooms. I came expecting to talk 
 to an audience untrained to think in abstract terms and I was 
 compelled to reconstruct my entire series of lectures to meet the 
 demands of the teachers. 
 
 In her efforts to improve the teaching force, Mrs. 
 Young resorted to her practices as principal of going 
 about hunting for good teaching and commending every 
 evidence of independent work or conscientious en- 
 deavor. Wherever she found work that was unsatis- 
 factory she did not hesitate to condemn in no uncertain 
 terms. The careless, slipshod shirker found little sat- 
 isfaction in Mrs. Young's visits to her room. In all of 
 her supervision she was fair and honest, praising effort 
 but condemning lack of effort. 
 
 That the task of raising the standard of teaching in 
 a large city was a difficult one, Mrs. Young appreciated
 
 School Administration from 1887 to 1899 85 
 
 fully. She gave herself without reserve to the work 
 and met with a large measure of success. But such an 
 undertaking under the conditions of the professional 
 standing of teachers at the beginning of her work was 
 sure to bring with it opposition and criticism. Her 
 experience was not an exception to this rule. She was 
 called hard, cold, severe, mannish, without sympathy, 
 and in general, very critical. Even her enemies, how- 
 ever, acknowledged her power and fitness for the posi- 
 tion she held. Her decided views and her positive 
 statement of her judgments without any preliminary 
 apology may have led often to such opinion of her 
 character. Usually those who occupied the unenviable 
 position of " time-servers " were the persons who found 
 her "hard and unsympathetic." 
 
 On the other hand, her quick appreciation of the 
 right spirit in a teacher was her power to win and hold 
 the great mass of the teaching body. She was popular 
 with the children as well as teachers. As a lecturer, 
 she had a large following. "Her lectures are largely 
 attended, not from duty, but from pleasure. She is a 
 fascinating speaker, knows her subject thoroughly, and 
 always gives us something to carry away." These 
 words were spoken by one of her adverse critics. An- 
 other writer says, regarding a sense of humor, "That 
 is one of the reasons we all flock to hear Mrs. Young, 
 and sit on the steps of the hall for an hour to be sure to 
 get a seat." (School Journal, October 22, 1898.) In 
 another place in this article the writer says: 
 
 Mrs. Young has been appointed supervisor of the domestic 
 arts, and we are beginning to think she is being imposed upon. 
 She is so capable, so willing, and everything she undertakes is so
 
 86 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 well done that it would surprise nobody if she were appointed 
 head of manual training and gave a practical demonstration of 
 the way to make a chair. She is an inspiration to the teachers 
 who feel themselves incompetent to manage household affairs 
 owing to their exclusive attention to intellectual work. 
 
 Her work and attitude endeared her to the great 
 mass of teachers in the system. 
 
 Next in importance in improving the schools to that 
 of raising the standards of teachers, Mrs. Young held 
 that a broad, flexible curriculum was essential. In this 
 work she insisted on the necessity of greater power and 
 intelligence on the part of teachers. She had decided 
 ideas on the rigid gradation with hard-and-fast lines in 
 the promotion of children. She took every occasion to 
 change this system in her own district. Many of her 
 early addresses before the teachers were on some phase 
 of the inflexible course of study and how it could be 
 remedied. A brief resume of one or two of these 
 addresses will show how strenuously she labored to 
 secure greater freedom in the course of study for the 
 grades.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A CLASH OF IDEALS IN SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 
 
 TV/TRS. YOUNG'S growth from a narrow, academic- 
 ** bound vision in her earlier career to that of a 
 broad-minded believer in all forms of education was 
 completed during her period in the superintendency. 
 The evolution of a great mind follows the flow of life 
 in the world at large, or rather epitomizes the inter- 
 ests of the age. Educationally, the world had for more 
 than a third of a century been moving away from classi- 
 cal and literary ideals and towards scientific and in- 
 dustrial culture. Great leaders were imbued with this 
 vision of a new day for the training of the young, but, 
 as yet, only the faintest impressions of it had been con- 
 veyed to the rank and file of teachers and superintend- 
 ents throughout the country. Mrs. Young's grasp of 
 this movement and her efforts to set it in concrete form 
 before her teachers show her as one of the coming 
 leaders of the period. Briefly summarized, her in- 
 terests and activities in this direction indicate the trend 
 of modern education for that time. 
 
 In a previous chapter, Mrs. Young's interest in liter- 
 ature for the elementary schools has been noted. A 
 further discussion of her position is necessary to show 
 her growth in the grasp of the subject over her earlier 
 viewpoint. Brief extracts from her paper delivered 
 before the National Education Association in 1896 will 
 suffice to illustrate her conception of the subject. 
 
 8?
 
 88 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Although the young are still given the ordinary in both 
 thought and expression with which to acquire the so-called me- 
 chanics of reading, yet the teachers are few who have the 
 hardihood in theory to restrict those little ones to a diet of the 
 commonplace. . . . Though the schools are moving slowly, 
 often halting on the way, hindered here by deplorable theories 
 based on custom, weakened there by the cause of nature stories 
 and adaptations of the classics written by the non-literary, yet, 
 thanks to those who have blazed the way to a broader and 
 higher view, no time need now be spent in presenting the claims 
 of literature as an element in child life. ... A prescribed 
 course in literature is not necessarily arranged with an eye single 
 to a logical sequence of subjects or to culture-epochs. It may be 
 planned with but one object in view, that of making the best 
 a definite and developing part of the curriculum. It may con- 
 sist of such prose and poetical, such descriptive and dramatic 
 works that one in whom are combined literary tastes and a deep 
 sympathy with child life can find no adverse opinion to pass 
 upon it. 
 
 She then shows how a hard-and-fast course of study 
 may defeat this object. 
 
 Literature reveals the possibilities of the human soul. Run- 
 ning through every literary production is some one of the 
 fundamental principles underlying the higher life, and this 
 principle woven into the warp and woof of the narration, the 
 novel, the poem, the myth, the drama, suggests to the reader 
 something farther and higher reaching than the soul itself has 
 yet attained. In all this there is an appeal to the nobler self. 
 It makes that self realize its personal, its individual responsi- 
 bilities. By putting a prescribed course into the hands of the 
 teacher, this permanent element, the arousing of the sense of re- 
 sponsibility through a selecting activity, is ignored. The book, 
 the essay, the poem, may be appreciated, but the teacher goes 
 to the class as the bearer of another's choice ; as an inferior acting 
 for a superior; not as one who, having found a joy, a life-giving 
 thought, must share/ it with the children. . . . The necessity for 
 courses of study in some subjects has been conceded in this 
 paper; yet, today, that necessity demands not half so much 
 attention from those who are close to the elementary schools,
 
 A Clash of Ideals 89 
 
 as do the narrowing and benumbing influences of minute details 
 in those outlines. . . . Loud are the complaints made by the 
 secondary schools, colleges, and universities, to the effect that 
 students come to them weak in spelling, weaker in punctuation, 
 and weakest of all in their use of the mother tongue. So faint 
 of heart are we as to the propriety of admitting the interesting 
 and the beautiful into our schoolrooms that the first breath of 
 adverse criticism makes us disown them as interlopers. The 
 complaints, coming at a time when faith in literature in the 
 schools is just beginning to germinate, tend to weaken that faith, 
 and to concentrate attention on the form side of language, before 
 its use and power as an instrument for the expression of thought 
 have been felt. . . . The spelling, the punctuation, and more 
 than these, the diction of the young should be improved, but in 
 the right way. Spelling, punctuation, forms of words, choice 
 of words, construction of sentences, all may be grouped under 
 the head of the technique of language. The same law holds 
 here that prevails in other subjects. Empty forms will not gen- 
 erate content. The resurrection of the meaningless or stilted 
 sentence set for spelling and punctuation, or paraphrases that 
 kill the thought and imagery of the original, and retain the 
 phrases and clauses arranged in reverse order, will not develop 
 beauty and vigor of thought and expression. The seeds of 
 thought must be implanted in the young minds and then the 
 technique be developed out of the resulting imagery and reflec- 
 tion. (Proceedings of the National Education Association, 
 1896, pp. 111-117.) 
 
 On another occasion she raises the problem of read- 
 ing and literature and, as she had done in the Skin- 
 ner School, deplores the dry and mechanical reading of 
 the elementary school, demanding good results by intro- 
 ducing children as soon as possible to the best in liter- 
 ature. "Having acquired power in translating the 
 printed symbol into the spoken word, a child should not 
 have reading and literature as distinct exercises." Com- 
 menting on the recommendation of the " Committee of 
 Fifteen," which enunciated the doctrine that three years
 
 90 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 of a child's life should be occupied in mastering a 
 printed and written vocabulary, Mrs. Young insists 
 that children can be taught so as to get thought from 
 their reading from the first day. Learning to read thus 
 becomes an intelligent process and not a drill in symbol 
 learning. She insisted on the child being allowed to put 
 his own interpretation on his reading. Because of her 
 wish to make reading intelligent and an organic part of 
 other studies, she championed, on all occasions, an 
 open list of books for reading and history so that chil- 
 dren could have opportunities to weigh various points 
 of view. 
 
 The subject of teaching reading is discussed again in 
 1899 in her address, The Outlook for the Schools of 
 Chicago, published in the School Weekly. She criticizes 
 the report of the " Committee of Fifteen " with refer- 
 ence to its recommendation on reading, saying: 
 
 In it was enunciated the doctrine that three years of a child's 
 life, beginning at the age of six years, must be occupied mainly 
 with acquiring the mastery of the printed and written forms of 
 his colloquial vocabulary. It is true that in some schools of 
 Chicago the method of reading is an endorsement of the com- 
 mittee. It is also true that in some schools reading as an exer- 
 cise for the mastery of the forms of familiar words has been 
 superseded by reading as an exercise for getting at thought 
 through the mastery of the forms of the words in which the 
 thought was expressed. In these schools the first word or sen- 
 tence read is read in order to get at the thought expressed by it. 
 To see a class of children from non-English speaking homes 
 three months after beginning to learn to read take each a piece 
 of paper fresh from the press on which the teacher has printed a 
 series of different things to be done, look them through intently 
 and then carefully obey the printed instructions, is to know what 
 is meant by the theory of reading that has distanced the theory 
 of the famous Committee of Fifteen.
 
 A Clash of Ideals 91 
 
 In season and out, Mrs. Young advocated manual 
 arts and drawing. During this period a few elemen- 
 tary schools of the city were fitted out with complete 
 equipment for manual training, at first furnished by 
 private funds but later by the board. Work of this 
 nature she considered opened up new avenues for 
 expression and creation by growing minds. In an ad- 
 dress before the Teachers' Club and Ella F. Young 
 Club, February 12, 1898, she said: 
 
 Drawing has given the children more means to express them- 
 selves. Scissors, blocks, and various implements have released 
 the little hands from the slate and pencil, which Mr. Rowland 
 called " the modern pillory and thumbscrew." The aim of 
 manual training is not to drive boys to trades, and keep them 
 away from the overcrowded professions, but to increase the 
 value of their work in every department. . Girls are not taught 
 the domestic arts in the public school to train them for servants, 
 but for the purpose of teaching them the values of foods and 
 hygiene. 
 
 With the growth of interest in nature study, Mrs. 
 Young had kept pace, and had always been an advocate 
 of the subject. The old object-lesson had appealed to 
 her at the beginning, but that had degenerated into lan- 
 guage lessons and on the object side into what she called 
 "bottled science." Upon the establishment of the 
 teachers' training class in 1893, Mrs. Young was influ- 
 ential in securing a science teacher from the high school 
 as one of the two directors of the work of preparing 
 teachers. She had seen that the failure of the old 
 object lessons and all other attempts to introduce nature 
 study and science into the elementary schools had been 
 due to the lack of intelligence in the matter on the part 
 of teachers and principals as to the ends to be accom-
 
 92 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 plished by these subjects and the resulting tendency to 
 mechanize them. 
 
 In her emphasis upon these subjects, Mrs. Young 
 did not lose sight of the academic branches, the tradi- 
 tional three R's. Arithmetic was shortened at both 
 ends of the course of study during this period, and the 
 recommendations of the Committee of Fifteen pre- 
 vailed in some respects as to the material of the course. 
 Algebra and concrete geometry were introduced into 
 the seventh and eighth grades, and Mrs. Young advo- 
 cated the reduction in the number of examples which 
 children were required to solve. The craze for vertical 
 writing was not shared by her because, as we have 
 already pointed out, she had developed a most pro- 
 ficient system of free movement in penmanship in her 
 own school, so that this idea seemed wholly unneces- 
 sary. But in spite of reluctance to admit the value of 
 vertical penmanship, she saw in it a breaking up of the 
 previous burden of written work required of children. 
 
 Mrs. Young's work as assistant superintendent 
 brought her into contact with all classes of schools and 
 children. In one school, made up of the foreign and 
 poor, located in the midst of the Chicago "vice dis- 
 trict," she found the greatest need was for bodily 
 cleanliness. Here, in spite of opposition on the part of 
 board members to schools assuming the functions of 
 the home, was established the first school bath in the 
 city. Many children at this period spent four and five 
 years in the early grades of the schools without even 
 learning to read. In rooms where such things occurred 
 teachers were trying to handle sixty and seventy chil- 
 dren. The board tried the plan of raising salaries of
 
 A Clash of Ideals 93 
 
 the primary grades to a level with the grammar grades 
 in order to secure teachers able to deal with these large 
 numbers, but this was a failure in more directions than 
 that of primary grade work. One of the first remedies 
 which Mrs. Young applied to the situation was to 
 reduce the seating capacity of the rooms. On the West 
 Side, where she first went as assistant superintendent, 
 she had all but fifty-four seats taken from the primary 
 rooms. The story is told of the attempt of one of the 
 principals to return the seventy seats to his rooms as 
 soon as it was known that Mrs. Young was to be trans- 
 ferred to a district on the South Side, but his order was 
 never executed. 
 
 Through all of her active work as a teacher and 
 administrator to the close of her work as assistant 
 superintendent in 1899, Mrs. Young had been officially 
 connected with the public schools of the city. In the 
 meantime, however, her mind had been employed on 
 the current problems of education of the world outside 
 of Chicago. She had made the acquaintance of men 
 and women of America and Europe and had been 
 studying her work in the light of their influence. It is 
 not strange, therefore, that "down state" she became 
 an active factor in education. In 1889 the Governor 
 appointed her a member of the State Board of Edu- 
 cation, a position she held for twenty years, being 
 reappointed each time until she became so deeply en- 
 grossed in Chicago schools that she had to give it up. 
 While a member of the body, she was continuously on 
 the Committee on Course of Study, and for most of the 
 time on that of teachers. As we have seen in connec- 
 tion with Chicago schools, her deepest interests were
 
 94 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 in these two problems. A prominent man of the state 
 said of her work on the state board that she was the 
 "best man on the board." 
 
 But her influence was not confined to an official posi- 
 tion on a board of education. She became prominent 
 in the club known as the "School-Mistresses' Club." 
 Political interests of some of the women of the state 
 led them to attempt to establish a separate association 
 for women. In 1888 Mrs. Young was invited to pre- 
 pare a paper on the aims of the club. She took a stand 
 against the separate association, but was strongly in 
 favor of a club for the educational and humanitarian 
 advancement of its members. As Miss J. Rose Colby, 
 a member of this club, writes, 
 
 Her influence carried the day. The School Mistresses' Club 
 has had a long and useful existence. I have more than once 
 heard Mrs. Young say that its meetings and its work were the 
 most valuable meetings and work she had ever shared. She was 
 president of the club for as many years as we could win or force 
 her consent to hold that office. As leader she did for us what 
 she has everywhere done as leader she stimulated us to many- 
 sided reading and growth, to a greater intellectual curiosity, 
 and a new sense of the significance of intellectual life. More 
 than anyone else I have ever known she had and has the power 
 of a great leader if she asked any woman of us to do any- 
 thing, we wanted to do it, and even though we doubted our own 
 powers, she managed to give the doubter courage. More than 
 one undeveloped and possibly crude woman grew visibly from 
 year to year in the work. And the spirit of good fellowship 
 and comradeship that grew up in the club I have never seen 
 equaled in any other organization, whether of women alone or 
 of men and women, that I have been connected with. 
 
 Mrs. Young for many years was a prominent figure 
 in county institutes of the states, where she was unusu- 
 ally successful. One of the teachers from Peoria who
 
 A Clash of Ideals 95 
 
 attended many of her institutes says of her that " she 
 has few equals in her power to inspire teachers to 
 make more of themselves and live up to the best that 
 is in them." While still in the office of assistant super- 
 intendent, Mrs. Young's reputation among educators 
 became national. She became a prominent figure in 
 the National Education Association, on the programs 
 of which she frequently appeared. 
 
 Chicago schools have never been completely free 
 from some more or less active political influence. In 
 the nature of the organization of the schools they lend 
 themselves to power-seeking interests. Such was the 
 case in 1897 when business interests made demands for 
 better and more efficient organization in schools. As 
 a matter of fact, the management had not previously 
 been effective in many respects. The superintendent's 
 power was not great, and methods of administration 
 were not modern. In compliance with the demands of 
 the time, the Board of Education was reorganized. An 
 educational commission was appointed of which W. R. 
 Harper, president of the University of Chicago, be- 
 came head. This commission reported in favor of 
 more centralized administration and more effective 
 business management and drafted a bill for a law to 
 make its recommendations effective. This bill became 
 a law. Over its provisions the most bitter fight waged, 
 and charges of all kinds were made against the inter- 
 ests back of the commissions and the law. It was said 
 to have been another attempt of big interests to use 
 the public schools in their own behalf. 
 
 In reorganization the board selected a man from the 
 outside for superintendent, a man of wide experience
 
 g6 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 as an administrator, and one who was thought capable 
 of introducing modern business methods into the 
 schools. When it is remembered that "home talent" 
 had been employed in the superintendency for many 
 years, first in the person of a former high-school prin- 
 cipal, and later in that of a Cook County superintend- 
 ent, it was evident that an outsider might find difficulties 
 in entering upon the position. As a matter of fact, the 
 new superintendent was never able to get the schools 
 into his hands. On the one hand, he was too demo- 
 cratic for the " forces " employing him, and on the 
 other, teachers distrusted his power. He was a misfit 
 from the first. While many of the measures which he 
 introduced and fought for were later accepted and 
 became parts of the administrative machinery, he him- 
 self was unable to put them into operation. 
 
 But teachers were opposed to his ideals of centrali- 
 zation. At once Mrs. Young championed the cause of 
 the teachers and democracy as opposed to methods 
 which administered schools from the top, regardless 
 of ideas of the teachers. She refused to work under 
 a regime which reduced school work to the lines of a 
 business corporation and made mere tools and clerks of 
 teachers and principals and assistant superintendents. 
 Her resignation was abrupt but fully thought out. 
 Newspapers were filled with the controversy because 
 the matter was thought to involve a vital issue in public- 
 school government. The following letters were incor- 
 porated in the annual report of the board, and show the 
 kind of fight Mrs. Young put up for the freedom of 
 teachers and their independent cooperation in the 
 management of schools.
 
 A Clash of Ideals 97 
 
 In regard to the letter, the president of the board 
 wrote : 
 
 Mrs. Ella F. Young severed her connection with the Chicago 
 Public Schools after a service covering a period of twenty-five 
 years. Her reasons therefor appear in the following letters 
 which I received from her and which were made public at the 
 time. They appear on page 654, Proceedings of the Board of 
 Education of June 14, 1899. 
 
 Chicago, June 3, 1899. 
 Graham H. Harris, President of the Board of Education : 
 
 Dear Sir It is my intention to sever my connection with 
 the public schools of Chicago at the close of the current school 
 month. 
 
 The Board of Education has undergone many changes since I 
 entered its service, yet it has ever generously recognized what- 
 ever of merit has been in my work. I take this opportunity to 
 make acknowledgment of the courtesy and encouragement 
 extended me by the Board. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 ELLA F. YOUNG, 
 District Superintendent of Schools. 
 
 Chicago, June 13, 1899. 
 Graham H. Harris, President of the Board of Education : 
 
 Dear Sir The announcement in the daily papers regarding 
 meetings to be held Saturday, June roth, by the Teachers' 
 Federation and the Teachers' Club, necessitated a statement 
 from me concerning my future in the schools. My information 
 was received so late, June 9th, that it was impossible for me 
 to write you before writing to the teachers. 
 
 I beg pardon for sending you a clipping from the newspaper 
 as a statement of my conclusions, but I can add nothing thereto, 
 and the clipping is a correct copy of my letter. 
 
 Thanking you for your personal, as well as official, courtesy 
 to me, I am 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 ELLA F. YOUNG.
 
 98 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Miss Gog gin, President of the Chicago Teachers' Federation; 
 
 and Miss Mary E. Lynch, President of the Chicago 
 
 Teachers' Club : 
 
 I have learned through the city press that the Federation and 
 the Teachers' Club will meet Saturday, June 10, to prepare a 
 petition to the Board of Education in relation to my resignation. 
 While warmly appreciating the friendly attitude which leads 
 some of the teachers to take such action, I owe it to them, 
 because of their confidence in me, to declare my position. 
 
 As you well know, I hold positive views regarding official 
 courtesy and official discipline. Only after careful considera- 
 tion of all the conditions did I take this important step. To 
 withdraw my resignation would imply either that the conditions 
 had not been duly considered by me or that the conditions had 
 been changed. Neither of these implications is true. 
 
 Let me present the subject in another light. When a sub- 
 ordinate in interviews, which she knows will be published in the 
 daily papers, expresses herself as being in disaccord profession- 
 ally with her superior in office, the relations of the subordinate 
 and chief should be severed. Under the circumstances it would 
 not be in accord with my theories of discipline for me to con- 
 tinue as a district superintendent. 
 
 Promotion in the Chicago public schools is made impossible 
 for me by the events of the past week, not because of inability 
 on my part to meet heavy responsibilities, but because my resig- 
 nation and the published interviews would furnish ground for a 
 misunderstanding as to my motives in resigning. 
 
 You are sufficiently familiar w r ith my methods of speech to 
 know that when I state I had absolutely no new position under 
 consickration at the time of notifying the President of the Board 
 of my intention to leave the schools, the statement means , 
 exactly what appears on its face. Equally clear and direct is my 
 statement that I intend entering into the duties of another edu- 
 cational position when a satisfactory one shall present itself. 
 
 That no doubt shall exist as to my attitude, the above is 
 summed up as follows: First, I cannot withdraw my resigna- 
 tion; second, I cannot continue to serve as a member of the 
 teaching corps of the public schools of Chicago. 
 
 With earnest wishes for the welfare of the schools and the 
 teachers of Chicago, I am yours very truly, 
 
 ELLA F. YOUNG.
 
 A Clash of Ideals 99 
 
 The superintendent under whom she refused to work 
 reported in this connection as follows : 
 
 By declining re-election for another year Mrs. Ella F. Young 
 has severed her connection with the public school system of 
 Chicago. Mrs. Young is a woman of rare talent, untiring 
 energy, large acquirements and ripe educational experience, 
 who has deservedly won a host of admiring and devoted friends. 
 As teacher, principal, and superintendent she has served the 
 city for thirty-seven years. I deeply regret her withdrawal from 
 the position she has so ably filled, yet congratulate the educa- 
 tional public on the promise that her professional labors, though 
 in another field, will still be continued. (Report of Board of 
 Education, 1899, p. 119.) 
 
 A petition signed by thousands of teachers and school 
 patrons was sent to the board at the time Mrs. Young 
 resigned. The petition was addressed to the working- 
 men of the city and was headed by a statement of the 
 reasons why the petition should be signed. In part it 
 said: 
 
 In order that the citizens of Chicago may understand Mrs. 
 Young's reason for resigning, it is necessary to state that she 
 has been deprived of the educational influence which she had 
 exerted under former school administrations. Mrs. Young is a 
 graduate of the Chicago public schools and has filled with honor 
 and ability every place in the school system from the lowest to 
 the highest, and her work has contributed in a large degree to 
 the excellent reputation which our public schools enjoy among 
 the cities of the Union. She has a national reputation as an 
 educator and has the faculty of inspiring with the highest ideas 
 of manhood and womanhood every teacher and pupil who comes 
 within the sphere of her influence. . . . Mrs. Young has taken 
 this noble and courageous course in order to place the matter in 
 its true light, and also to impress on the minds of the citizens 
 of Chicago the danger that lurks in the present movement of 
 Mr. Andrews.
 
 ioo Ella Flagg Young 
 
 This petition bore no fruit so far as recalling Mrs. 
 Young to the position she had left. Once her mind was 
 made up in matters of this kind it could not easily be 
 changed.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR A WOMAN PAST FIFTY 
 
 TN 1904 the late William James wrote: "Chicago 
 * has a School of Thought! a school of thought 
 which, it is safe to predict, will figure in literature as 
 the school of Chicago for twenty-five years to come." 
 Mr. James characterized the philosophical work of Mr. 
 Dewey and his co-workers in the University of Chi- 
 cago as an "evolutionism," as an "empiricism." 
 
 Taking it en gros, what strikes me most in it is the great 
 sense of concrete reality with which it is filled. It seems a 
 promising via media between the empiricist and transcendentalist 
 tendencies of our time. Like empiricism, it is individualistic and 
 phenomenalistic ; it places truth in rebus, and not ante rem. It 
 resembles transcendentalism, on the other hand, in making value 
 and fact inseparable, and in standing for continuities and pur- 
 poses in things. It employs the genetic method to which both 
 schools are now accustomed. It coincides remarkably with the 
 simultaneous movement in favor of " pragmatism " or " human- 
 ism " set up quite independently at Oxford by Messrs. Schiller 
 and Sturt. It probably has a great future, and is certainly some- 
 thing of which America may be proud. (Psychological Bul- 
 letin, I, i, January 15, 1904,) 
 
 One of Mr. Dewey's associates at the time of this 
 statement was Mrs. Young. She became a member of 
 the department after leaving the assistant superintend- 
 ency in 1899, and remained a part of the faculty until 
 her resignation in 1904, when Mr. Dewey left the 
 University. On the side of the application of this 
 "school of thought" to the problems of education she 
 had a large part. 
 
 101
 
 IO2 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Long before Mrs. Young left the public schools she 
 had interested herself in the work of the University. 
 Her first connection with it was to enter a seminar in 
 1895 conducted by Mr. Dewey. At that time she was 
 fifty years of age. She tells this interesting incident of 
 her entrance of this work, saying it shows how small 
 are some of the things of life that decide one's course. 
 When she entered the hall where registration for the 
 opening of the year was taking place she was met by 
 the hum of voices and the bustle of figures of young 
 women and men intent upon entrance routine. 
 
 I was told that in order to enter Mr. Dewey's course I should 
 have to present a permit signed by him. I looked up the long 
 flight of stairs of Cobb Hall and watched the eager faces of the 
 young people and decided that it was a plac** for young people 
 and that I should not take up the work. As I turned to leave, 
 some young man who knew me by appearance stepped up and 
 offered to go up stairs to Mr. Dewey and get his signature for 
 me. So that's the way I happened to enter the University of 
 Chicago. 
 
 She continued in this afternoon seminar for four 
 years, studying logic, ethics, metaphysics, and Hegel's 
 philosophy. During this period she had opportunity 
 to work out the application of the philosophical theo- 
 ries as she studied them in her supervision of schools.* 
 
 One of the members of the seminar during the time Mrs. Young 
 attended it speaks of her as follows: "My impressions of her then 
 were that she was a serious student, alert to what was going on, had 
 opinions of her own, and was able to express them. In this latter 
 respect I used to feel that she went too far; she seemed inclined to 
 run things somewhat. I could see that she was acquainted with 
 Dewey, and he appeared to let her have a good deal of rein per- 
 haps on account of their acquaintance. She was not of the tiresome 
 talker variety, who monopolizes things and rides over you. What 
 she had to say was good. There were no indications of verbo-mania
 
 Higher Education 103 
 
 That she profited by this association of theory and 
 practice is evident both from the effects of her work 
 on the schools during these years and from her state- 
 ments made before various bodies of teachers in the 
 city. The first public mention Mrs. Young makes of 
 the work of the University was in an address delivered 
 in January, 1899. In this address she said with refer- 
 ence to the work: 
 
 The University of Chicago has recently opened what it calls 
 a college for teachers. With a warm appreciation of the frater- 
 nal attitude of the University towards the public-school teaching 
 corps, I must express my pleasure in the new department. I am 
 forced, however, to say that the title of the new department is 
 confusing. There are two gains to teachers in the opening of 
 the college, but neither of these in any way warrants the phrase 
 " college for teachers." The first gain is in the lessening of the 
 distance to be traveled by persons, not necessarily teachers, living 
 in the north and west divisions of the city and wishing to study 
 under some of the best teachers in the University. The second 
 gain is the definite understanding as to the conditions under 
 which teachers work in order to obtain a degree. Neither of 
 these gains, as has been said before, has any relation to the ideal 
 for which " teacher " stands. 
 
 To the inquiry, "Would you have the college simply a nor- 
 mal school or a school of pedagogy for experienced teachers?" 
 I reply, " By no means." The contention is that there is nothing 
 in the method of study of languages or sciences that makes for 
 better teaching in the elementary schools, any more than there 
 is in the departments " not for teachers." Judging by the 
 expressions of some who are enrolled as students in the college, 
 it is looked upon as a ladder by which teachers in the elementary 
 
 or the sort of egotism that bores one to death. It was rather, if any- 
 thing, a case of her and Dewey discussing Hegel to the neglect of the 
 rest of us. I do not know that her views were ' way yonder ' ahead 
 of the average of the class, but she was disposed to ' get into the 
 game ' about all the time, and of course she was giving her own views 
 and not absorbing those of others."
 
 IO4 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 schools may climb into the secondary-school corps, and members 
 of the high-school corps into college and university faculties. 
 It is not desired that the instruction shall be diluted to the com- 
 prehension of young children, but it is desired that the work 
 shall be so related to life that students in the college for teachers 
 shall not share with university graduates in a distaste for teach- 
 ing the young below the high schools. The outlook for ele- 
 mentary education is not brightened by the present attitude of 
 the student class toward the child under fifteen years of age. 
 The present treatment of subjects makes one almost understand 
 the objection to giving women a higher education, as it takes 
 them away from the children, and somebody must teach the 
 children. The narrow limits within which the vast majority 
 of teachers pursued their studies have restricted both their 
 method and their theory of education. But those offering ad- 
 vanced courses to teachers should make sure that the elements 
 of the deepest and highest forms of life are in what they offer. 
 The manner in which the University has thrown open its 
 doors to the Chicago teachers commands our admiration. It 
 meets our ideal of a university as a great educational force, 
 shedding its light throughout an entire city. That the teachings 
 of the department of philosophy and pedagogy have not been 
 concreted in the department termed the college for teachers sur- 
 prises and disappoints us. It is to be hoped that the plan of the 
 college will receive further consideration in time, giving to its 
 students an equipment that will elevate the teaching corps in 
 all the departments of its work. With the University faculty 
 and other competent lecturers on the subjects of arts, science, and 
 literature in this city, the public-school teacher who can calmly 
 look on, taking no part in class or club organized for study, 
 must regret the hard fortune which forces her to mingle with 
 the great body of Chicago teachers a body of students. 
 
 With this statement it is evident that Mrs. Young 
 had seen clearly the influence which the University was 
 exerting and would continue to exert. Two direct influ- 
 ences were felt coming from the school. In the first 
 place, President Harper was a man whose ambition 
 to organize and systematize institutions with which he 
 came into touch led him to undertake such a task with
 
 Higher Education 105 
 
 the public schools of Chicago. Whether, as he was 
 accused at the time, he had any notion of making a 
 great educational "trust," using the city schools as 
 feeders for the University, need not be considered. He 
 did undertake to centralize and control the adminis- 
 tration of schools as was pointed out in the last chapter. 
 "The school system requires radical improvement," 
 reads the report of the Harper Commission. It recom- 
 mended that the board of education should be made 
 up of eleven members who were to be "only men of 
 the highest character and enlightenment." The board 
 should be alone responsible for the purchase of sites 
 and the erection of buildings, and not dependent upon 
 the city council in these matters. Committee govern- 
 ment of school affairs as practiced by the board was 
 condemned. The superintendent of schools "should be 
 granted much larger power" and elected for a term 
 of six years. All educational questions, course of study, 
 text-books, apparatus, examination, appointment and 
 dismissal of teachers, devolves upon him. There should 
 be a capable business manager " free to apply the same 
 methods as in a well-conducted business," and he was 
 to have the same salary and length of service as the 
 superintendent. Teachers should be required to possess 
 higher standards, and to secure such the normal course 
 was to be lengthened from one to two years. Salaries 
 were to be based on promotion gained through efficiency 
 rather than on length of service. A more flexible course 
 of study was demanded, reduction of some of the sub- 
 jects in the course was called for, with the introduction 
 of " constructive work" into every grade. The commis- 
 sion recommended the establishment of kindergartens,
 
 io6 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 vocational and evening schools, more manual training 
 in the high schools, and a four-year "commercial high 
 school." It recommended also the use of school yards 
 as playgrounds and a wider use of the school plant. 
 The commission discussed forms of parental schools 
 and recommended the establishment of one in Chicago. 
 In order to stimulate them to further advancement the 
 teachers in service were to be formed into faculties or 
 councils to discuss educational problems. 
 
 The law proposed by the commission to secure these 
 changes was the object of the most bitter attacks. 
 Several teachers' organizations in the city opposed the 
 idea of a reduction in the number of members on the 
 school board and argued that it should be larger rather 
 than smaller. Such discussions as the following were 
 common in the clubs of teachers : 
 
 1. Should the board of education be representative, espe- 
 cially, or is it to perform a service to society as a unit ? 
 
 2. Is this service such as requires numbers or may it be per- 
 formed best by few with wisdom, skill, and integrity? 
 
 3. Should candidates for appointment to the board be re- 
 quired to give evidence of qualifications as to age, skill, wisdom, 
 and character? 
 
 4. Should the board be expected or permitted to decide ques- 
 tions involving professional skill and knowledge? 
 
 5. Is it wise to trust the school interests of this great city 
 entirely to one person ? 
 
 6. Would it not be wise to have a board of superintendence 
 to decide regarding general policies relating to all parts of the 
 city? 
 
 7. Can we not have a law that may give due freedom and 
 responsibility to superintendent, district superintendent, prin- 
 cipal, and teacher? 
 
 Most of the complaints against the bill proposed by 
 the Harper Commission were of too great centraliza-
 
 Higher Education 107 
 
 tion of power in a few hands. A superintendent and 
 business manager appointed for six years with power 
 over the educational and business affairs were greatly 
 feared. In the report of one committee of teachers are 
 found the words : 
 
 We object to the centralization of power in the superin- 
 tendent in the matter of hiring his assistants, principals, super- 
 visors, teachers, and other officials, and the selecting of text- 
 books. We feel that the idea of democracy should be encour- 
 aged. It is necessary in a city like Chicago for the people to be 
 in close touch with the work of the school, made up as it is of 
 a mixed population. 
 
 In spite of opposition to the recommendations of the 
 Harper Commission great strides were made in the 
 direction of greater efficiency in administration. At the 
 same time the conflict between a more highly centralized 
 administration and greater freedom among teachers 
 was raised and became so acute that Chicago schools 
 for several years presented a continual commotion, 
 sometimes with the school board and superintendent on 
 one side against the teachers, and sometimes with super- 
 intendent and teachers standing together for greater 
 freedom. The Harper Commission marks an epoch in 
 school history in Chicago, and through it the University 
 exercised a powerful influence on the schools. 
 
 The second direction through which the University 
 of Chicago came into the school life and thought of the 
 city was in the influence of the department of philosophy 
 under the leadership of Mr. John Dewey. The essen- 
 tial contribution of this department had been to turn 
 philosophical interest and thought towards the prob- 
 lems of society of the present day. As Mr. James put
 
 io8 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 it, this was a new school of thought. Instead of making 
 philosophy a dry-as-dust digging up of the thoughts of 
 the ancients and devoting time to philological disser- 
 tations, Mr. Dewey and his associates turned towards 
 the problems of human life. Since thought is dynamic 
 and pragmatic, its province is in a living, acting world 
 of people. 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that Mr. Dewey turned 
 his attention to problems of elementary education. 
 Education gives opportunity for putting into effect the 
 ideas and principles which thinking brings to light. 
 There, also, is found opportunity for testing and devel- 
 oping, through experimentation, theories of human 
 conduct. As pointed out by Mrs. Young, the depart- 
 ment of philosophy had already been strongly felt in 
 the awakening of a higher and more intelligent concep- 
 tion of the work of education. Other evidences of Mr. 
 Dewey's influence on the schools of the city are not 
 wanting. Many of the more ambitious teachers and 
 principals had taken advantage of the courses which 
 he offered, such as that attended by Mrs. Young. In 
 the course of study adopted for the elementary schools 
 of Chicago in 1897, not only were the ideas of Mr. 
 Dewey clearly evident, but even phraseology used by 
 him found a place, such as his statement that "the 
 school is not a preparation for life, but is life." Most 
 significant for the schools at large was the new "lab- 
 oratory school " founded by Mr. Dewey in 1 896. This 
 school attempted to "concrete," to use the expression 
 of Mrs. Young, some of the ideas and plans promul- 
 gated by the department of philosophy at the Univer- 
 sity. Visitors were attracted to this school from all
 
 Higher Education 109 
 
 parts of the country, and its influence was widespread, 
 even though the school lasted but a few years. In 1900 
 Mrs. Young became a " supervisor" in this school. 
 
 The spirit of this school was stated by Mr. Dewey 
 in his book, School and Society. 
 
 A recent writer speaks of a revision of the book thus : 
 
 When Professor Dewey brought out the first edition of 
 School and Society, in 1899, he found a very eager audience 
 for the doctrines of innovation which he had to teach. From 
 a broad sociological and ethical point of view Dewey called 
 attention to radical economic changes which have been going 
 on in society and outlined the corresponding changes which 
 must be made in the organization and course of study of the 
 schools. He called attention, in his second chapter, to the neces- 
 sity of making all of these changes with due recognition of the 
 child's intellectual and physical and moral nature. In the third 
 chapter he pointed out the fact that our present school organiza- 
 tion is very defective because of its failure to bring together the 
 different educational agencies in any unified way. In the earlier 
 edition, the fourth chapter contained a sketch of the history of 
 the laboratory school which Dewey founded. The questions 
 that were to be investigated by that school were outlined, and 
 one derived a clear understanding from that chapter of the 
 reasons why Dewey called his school a laboratory school. Fur- 
 thermore, the questions raised by Dewey made it evident even 
 to the inexperienced reader that educational experimentation is 
 very much needed in order to improve both the method of 
 instruction and the organization of the curriculum. . . . Cer- 
 tainly Professor Dewey may rest assured of the very great 
 influence of his book. It is given only to a few men to write 
 educational classics. Since Spencer wrote his essays there has 
 not been a more important contribution to educational reform 
 than Dewey's School and Society. (The Elementary School 
 Journal, October, 1915.) 
 
 From a position as superintendent in the public 
 schools Mrs. Young went into Mr. Dewey's depart- 
 ment in 1899.
 
 no Ella Flagg Young 
 
 At the time of her resignation from the schools of 
 the city she planned for a year abroad, to travel and 
 study. The night before her departure, in June, Presi- 
 dent Harper of the University of Chicago sent his 
 secretary to interview her on the subject of her taking 
 a place in the faculty of the University. She refused at 
 first to consider the matter, and he sent his secretary 
 a second time asking for the interview. He offered 
 her a full professorship in the department of pedagogy, 
 but she could not bring herself to accept such a position 
 without ever having taken any college degree. " How 
 could I go before my students and urge them on to 
 higher education without first having even a bachelor's 
 degree myself? " President Harper offered her a posi- 
 tion^which he said he would "create on the spot" for 
 her " associate professorial lecturer in pedagogy" 
 and give her an opportunity to study during the first 
 year for her degree. This position she accepted and 
 cut her visit to Europe short, returning to the Univer- 
 sity at the opening of the fall quarter. For a year she 
 pursued courses in philosophy and psychology, continu- 
 ing the work begun in Mr. Dewey's seminar. At the 
 end of that time she was granted a degree in philosophy 
 and education. She became a full professor of educa- 
 tion after having obtained her degree. A story char- 
 acteristic of Mrs. Young's lack of formality she tells 
 giving her experience in the examination for this degree. 
 
 It was a blistering hot day and we were garbed in cap and 
 gown and sitting about the long table in impressive style. I 
 took off my cap and said I guessed it would be safe on the table, 
 and then slipped my gown back onto the back of my chair. My 
 act, though a breach of the dignity of the occasion, at least made
 
 Higher Education 1 1 1 
 
 me much more comfortable for the prolonged questioning of the 
 august committee. 
 
 Mrs. Young and Mr. Dewey became associated in 
 the closest unity in their work during her five years 
 in the University. Her wide range of experience and 
 her wonderful grasp of the details of school work 
 complemented his philosophic insight into the under- 
 lying principles of the subject. Her adaptability and 
 power to learn gave her the benefit of this new prag- 
 matic interpretation of life and education. Their work 
 together was made the more effective because of their 
 mutual appreciation of each other's power. Both were 
 fundamentally democratic in thought and character, 
 and, as a consequence, they could lay aside all sham 
 dignity and enter at once into the heart of the problems 
 of philosophy and education. One of the products of 
 such discussion was the joint authorship of six mono- 
 graphs called by them Contributions to Education 
 (The University of Chicago Press, 1902). Mrs. 
 Young wrote three of the six Isolation in the School, 
 Ethics in the School, and Some Types of Modern Edu- 
 cational Theory. In the first of these essays she takes 
 up, first, " The parts of the social institution," secondly, 
 " Some recent constructions of psychological, ethic, and 
 logical modes that must be recognized in a rational 
 conduct of the school," and, thirdly, "The function of 
 a school in democracy." Mrs. Young stated most fully 
 her philosophical point of view in this essay and shows 
 very clearly how she had been influenced by modern 
 biological conceptions of psychology and philosophy 
 in her thinking and writing on educational questions. 
 
 Imitation and invention as shown in children are two
 
 112 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 sides of the same activity, and this activity, as the author 
 points out, is controlled by the organism which pos- 
 sesses the " original impulse which selects and reacts. 
 The modern psychologist has thus shown the growth 
 of mental power, even in so primary an activity as 
 imitation, to depend upon the modification which the 
 mind of the imitator originates." Again, in discussing 
 the formation of habit, she has pointed out the biolog- 
 ical aspect of this form of growth. She criticizes both 
 Carpenter and James, saying: 
 
 The chapters written by these brilliant men are decided 
 contributions to psychological and ethical theory; and yet, in 
 neither does the writer rise to the command of the subject which 
 shows that the imitative and the habit, the cause that makes the 
 nerve-current traverse a certain path the first time and the 
 repetition of the act, are the two aspects of a unity. 
 
 She finds in Baldwin's Mental Development an an- 
 swer to the question of " What made the current 
 traverse the path for the first time?" and quotes: 
 
 Habit expresses the tendency of the organism to secure and 
 retain its vital stimulations. On this view, a habit begins before 
 the movement which illustrates it actually takes place ; the organ- 
 ism is endowed with a habit, if that be not considered a contra- 
 diction. 
 
 But she finds Baldwin's biological view of habit for- 
 mation contradicting the doctrine of mind set forth in 
 modern psychology, and so sets up another view in 
 which she follows Dewey's doctrine of "the reflex arc 
 concept"* of habit formation in education. This new 
 
 * Psychological Review, vol III, 1893.
 
 Higher Education 113 
 
 conception, instead of presenting destruction as the out- 
 come of reformation, strengthens the self-respect by 
 the requirement to search for the elements of power 
 and then utilize them in the new mode. The dull rou- 
 tine of trying to form habits by wearisome repetitions, 
 the discouraging process of trying to overcome the 
 enemy, the old habit, only to find it upon the first lapse 
 of vigilance reinstated in full sway, must give way to 
 a higher type of activity. 
 
 When Mrs. Young made this statement she was 
 thinking of the fossil type of school grind through 
 which children are passed in order to form habits. 
 She had in mind the fruitless repetitions, known as 
 " drill," which young children are compelled to endure, 
 while all this wasted energy might be turned into useful 
 channels of learning both for children and society. 
 
 A third illustration in this essay of the psychological 
 characteristic and tendency of Mrs. Young's writings 
 is shown in her treatment of attention. Attention is 
 always a function of the person's purposes, according 
 to the author, and is controlled by the ends he sets out 
 to accomplish. Inattention, therefore, is merely an- 
 other way of saying that the person is attending to 
 something else or has purposes in other directions from 
 those immediately apparent. 
 
 If the general consensus of opinion as to the relation between 
 mind-wandering and attention were taken, it would be found 
 to embody the idea that in trying to follow oral discourse the 
 mind of the listener can often be kept from wandering by the 
 mechanical repetition of the words of the speaker. Here, in a 
 nutshell, is the perversity of the theory which often makes 
 dullards of the young. What value is it to keep the mind from 
 wandering if it is tethered to words, not intelligence? The
 
 114 TLlla Flagg Young 
 
 failure to distinguish sharply between the discriminating alert- 
 ness of attention and the undistinguishing passivity of the mere 
 repetition of words is due, probably, to the non-recognition of 
 the activity of feeling, as well as of intellect, in the process of 
 attention. 
 
 To attempt to secure attention of children by stirring 
 up fictitious kinds of interest is to destroy their capacity 
 to follow through serious problems which they may 
 have to meet. The modern psychologist is more fully 
 concerned in the capacity of the organism to pick out 
 and hold up ends which are of value to life than he 
 is in any other aspect of behavior. While Mrs. Young's 
 statement of this problem is very brief, it opens up the 
 entire field of application of attention to school work. 
 It is in the direction of the use of these psychological 
 concepts in teaching that she has been of most service 
 in this essay. 
 
 The second study of the Contributions to Education 
 was her Ethics in the School (The University of Chi- 
 cago Press, 1902, pp. 44). In style this essay is the 
 freest and most popularly written of Mrs. Young's 
 works, and sets forth clearly her position as to the 
 function of the school in forming character in children. 
 In her ethics as well as in her logic, Mrs. Young is a 
 democrat. Moreover, her democracy is for each 
 person, whether that person be adult or child. 
 
 Without depreciating the value of the experience of the adult 
 in weighing conditions that are often new and perplexing to 
 the boy or girl, one sees in this assumption of a command of all 
 that is right and reasonable by the adult, an ignoring of men- 
 tality in the child. The conduct of a home or a school on the 
 theory that it is the parent's home, or the teacher's school, and 
 hence the child must conform to the laws, rules, or customs
 
 Higher Education 115 
 
 which the parent or teacher has decided to be satisfactory to 
 him, is hostile to the growth in the mind of the child of an ideal 
 co-partnership in and responsibility for the order and care of 
 that home or that school. (Ethics in the School, p. 31.) 
 
 Her respect for the right to think and for the person- 
 ality of others is the most fundamental part of the 
 ethical teaching in this as well as other statements. 
 In her essay already quoted, Isolation in the School, she 
 says: 'The most difficult line of action to pursue is 
 that which respects the rights of other minds; not the 
 rights of property, but of thought." (p. no.) In the 
 same essay she quotes Mill's words that " intellectual 
 power and practical love of truth are alike impossible 
 where the reasoner is shown his conclusions and in- 
 formed beforehand that he is expected to arrive at 
 them." (p. 72.) Freedom and democracy are the two 
 principles which run through all the writings of Mrs. 
 Young on ethics. 
 
 Some Types of Modern Educational Theory is the 
 title of the third study of the Contributions. In it the 
 author discusses the views of Arnold Tompkins as set 
 forth in his Philosophy of Teaching, a book published 
 in 1891; of Mary R. Ailing- Aber's Experiment; of 
 W. W. Speer's theory of education; of Francis W. 
 Parker's Course of Study ; of John Dewey's educational 
 doctrine. She analyzes fairly, though briefly, the point 
 of view of each doctrine, and states the directions in 
 which it conforms to modern psychology and philosophy 
 of education. 
 
 Another essay written while a member of the Uni- 
 versity faculty and appearing as one of the papers 
 furnished by the several departments for the Decennial
 
 Ii6 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Publications was her Scientific Method m Education 
 (First series, vol. Ill, Decennial Publications, The Uni- 
 versity of Chicago Press, 1903, pp. 15). Here a strong 
 plea is made for the application of scientific method in 
 matters educational. Criticizing modern educational 
 method and its unscientific attitude, she says: 
 
 Educational method has, however, disclaimed the name of 
 science, and rightly, too. It started with the expressed aim of 
 setting conditions that would be conducive to the development 
 of the child according to the law of its being. Its terms have 
 been those of evolution and development, but its meanings have 
 been meanings of pre-Darwinian times. With the magnification 
 of the teacher as the external force, whose chief office was to 
 prepare the nutritious food in layers so that it should be taken 
 in accord with the determined laws of nature, there has been a 
 steady growth of non-scientific method in the schools. To plan 
 and conduct a recitation so that the learner shall neither hesitate 
 nor stumble have been the alpha and omega of so-called educa- 
 tional method, (p. 5.) 
 
 The courses of Mr. Dewey and Mrs. Young in the 
 University were developed so as to complement each 
 other, and students in the department felt the force 
 of these two great minds coming at problems from 
 distinctly different points of view yet developing a com- 
 mon underlying philosophy of the subject. 
 
 Mrs. Young was dissatisfied with the name of the 
 department into which she went, and her objections 
 changed the department of pedagogy to that of educa- 
 tion. Her courses included work in psychology and 
 education, social aspects of education, the history of 
 the arts, the philosophy of activity in education, and 
 handwork as an educational instrument. As a teacher 
 in the University Mrs. Young was particularly stimu-
 
 Higher Education 117 
 
 lating. She never lectured to her classes. Her great 
 power lay in her ability to draw out her students and 
 make them take stands on questions at issue. In her 
 questions she cut both to the heart of the matter in 
 hand and to the deepest and often hitherto unexpressed 
 beliefs of her students. But the recitation was not 
 merely a debate on some question. It was rather a 
 many-sided symposium, involving the contributions of 
 each one in the class. Her stimulating power came 
 from her democratic respect and faith in each person 
 in her work, or, as someone else has put it, in her power 
 to make each one believe in himself. Each felt called 
 upon to do his best and felt his power to do the subject 
 justice. All this did not come from an exhortation to 
 her class, but from her power to present the subject in 
 a way that compelled the student to lose himself in it 
 as it opened up under the leadership of an active mind 
 and spirit. Whether the course was a history of the 
 arts, or method in history and grammar, her work was 
 always effective and stimulating. Said a former stu- 
 dent years afterward: "Do you know that the work I 
 had with Mrs. Young carried farther into practical 
 teaching and administration than anything I took at 
 the University?" He himself was a man of mature 
 years and experience at the time he attended her classes. 
 Always outside the problem, like a scientist with his 
 material before him, she never set up her own opinion 
 or position between the student and the subject itself. 
 She never obscured the issue by a preliminary disserta- 
 tion nor limited it by her own immediate vision. Often 
 persons in the class expressed dissatisfaction that she 
 did not express definitely the ends she expected them
 
 1 1 8 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 to arrive at, but she always kept in the background so 
 that one was never quite sure of her deepest thoughts 
 on the matter. Whether she was herself groping for a 
 deeper meaning and was striving for further enlighten- 
 ment and was thus unwilling to commit herself and 
 her students to an unfinished and imperfect viewpoint, 
 or whether she merely held back in order to bring them 
 to their own formulation, was never quite clear to her 
 students. Undoubtedly her hesitation in such cases was 
 the act of a teacher seeking to throw the responsibility 
 upon the judgment of those she was trying to teach 
 and refusing to bind them to a doctrine of her own. 
 Her ability to set one doctrine over against another, 
 to make the student carry on these doctrines to some 
 objective goal of their own making, while she stood 
 on the outskirts of the struggle, helping here and there 
 with a suggestion, was likely to obscure to those in the 
 midst of the discussion the fact that she really had a 
 principle at stake and was deeply committed to a par- 
 ticular philosophy back of the problem. 
 
 As matter of fact, however, she was continually 
 growing in her own viewpoint and mastery of modern 
 thought at the very time she carried on her classes in 
 the University. One need only read some of her earlier 
 and her later essays and speeches to note the tremen- 
 dous growth of the author of them during these years. 
 Probably the most remarkable aspect of Mrs. Young 
 was her power to grow during the years from her 
 entrance to the University to the time of her with- 
 drawal. For a woman of her age to take up courses 
 in the University and grow through the entire time is 
 a criterion of Mrs. Young's character.
 
 Higher Education 119 
 
 While in the University her heart, as always, was 
 in the problems of elementary-school teachers. In her 
 address on the University before she entered there, 
 Mrs. Young pointed out the danger of higher educa- 
 tion drawing teachers away from elementary grades. 
 Upon her entrance into the University she attempted 
 to put her ideas into practice and developed her work 
 as far as possible for the elementary-school teachers. 
 She kept in touch with the schools by having a club of 
 teachers meet at her home once each week during all 
 her residence at the University. This was the continua- 
 tion of the club which originated in her own school 
 while she was principal, though it had grown in num- 
 bers and changed somewhat in personnel. Not only 
 were her courses planned for the elementary teachers, 
 not only did she keep in touch with them through per- 
 sonal association with them, but she became the editor 
 of a magazine planned directly for that class of read- 
 ers, The Elementary School Teacher. Her essays and 
 addresses published during this time dealt with elemen- 
 tary-school problems and were addressed to them. 
 
 When Mr. Dewey left the University in 1904, Mrs. 
 Young felt that she could not remain with conditions 
 as they were at the time. She was asked to stay and 
 continue the work of the department of education, but 
 she declined. 
 
 Mr. Dewey's estimate of Mrs. Young is set forth in 
 the following letter, quoted at length because of its 
 clear and sympathetic analysis of her character: 
 
 Regarding my relations to Mrs. Young: First, it is hard for 
 me to be specific, because they were so continuous and so detailed 
 that the influence resulting from them was largely insensible.
 
 I2O Ella Flagg Young 
 
 I was constantly getting ideas from her. In the reorganization 
 of the laboratory school after certain weaknesses in its original 
 scheme of administration had become apparent (due largely to 
 my inexperience in administrative matters) her influence with 
 that of Mrs. Dewey were the controlling factors. It is due to 
 these two that the laboratory school ran so much more system- 
 atically and definitely free from a certain looseness of ends 
 and edges in its last three or four years. 
 
 In my opinion, what Mrs. Young got from her study of 
 philosophy was chiefly a specific intellectual point of view and 
 terminology (the two things can't be separated, for terminology 
 with a person like Mrs. Young is a very real thing, not a verbal 
 one) in which to clear up and express the practical outcome of 
 her prior experience. This gave her in turn a greater com- 
 mand of her experience and a greater intellectual assurance. 
 This led her in many respects to overestimate the explicit content 
 of my own teachings. That is, she gave me credit for seeing 
 all of the bearings and implication which she with her experience 
 and outlook got out of what I said. As a student (in the class- 
 room, I mean) I should say her chief mark was the ineradicable 
 tendency to test all philosophic formulations by restatement of 
 them in terms of experience and this not the conventional 
 "experience" of philosophy, but a very definite experience of 
 what the doctrine would mean if attempted in practice the 
 difference it would actually make in the way of looking at other 
 things than just philosophy. She had by temperament and train- 
 ing the gist of a concrete empirical pragmatism with reference 
 to philosophical conceptions before the doctrine was ever formu- 
 lated in print. Another thing that impressed me was the range 
 of her experience its scope, and her habitual attitude of open- 
 ness to everything which would enrich it. To say that I have 
 never seen a student of her age who had retained the flexibility 
 and open-mindedness of younger students is to understate the 
 fact very much her experience had, instead of closing her 
 mind, made it more eager and more competent in growth. She 
 hadn't retained flexibility and open-mindedness; she had culti- 
 vated and acquired them to an extraordinary degree. 
 
 Apart from the suggestions, which were so numerous that I 
 couldn't name them, what I chiefly got from Mrs. Young was 
 just the translation of philosophic conceptions into their empir- 
 ical equivalents. More times than I could well say I didn't see
 
 Higher Education 121 
 
 the meaning or force of some favorite conception of my own 
 till Mrs. Young had given it back to me I am referring even 
 more to association with her as a colleague than when she was 
 a student. And as I have already intimated, she generally 
 assumed as a matter of course that I had the point in mind from 
 the start. I can give two examples. 
 
 I think what Mrs. Young chiefly got from her philosophic 
 courses was an intellectual systematized justification of her prac- 
 tical and experimental belief in and respect for the intellectual 
 procedures of the pupil as a pupil. I have to confess that I had 
 never appreciated this aspect of my own logical theory till I 
 found it so emphasized by her. Putting it in another way, it 
 was from her that I learned that freedom and respect for free- 
 dom mean regard for the inquiring or reflective processes of 
 individuals, and that what ordinarily passes for freedom 
 freedom from external restraint, spontaneity in expression, 
 etc. are of significance only in their connection with thinking 
 operations. 
 
 The other point is this. I hardly ever have seen anybody 
 who had such an habitual and keen sense of the influence of 
 one person's associations with others upon mental habits as 
 had Mrs. Young. And I have never seen any one with such a 
 keen sense of it as applied to classroom procedure the reflex 
 effect of the teacher's habits upon the pupil in all kinds of subtle 
 but pervasive ways. As a consequence, her sense of intellectual 
 life as a " give and take " process was practically instinctive. 
 
 I owe chiefly to association with Mrs. Young the depth of 
 my conviction that all psychology which isn't physiological is 
 social. And this leads me to add a third point. Mrs. Young's 
 experience in teaching had forced home to her the importance 
 of the mental and moral influence of physical and organic condi- 
 tions. At the same time she had her enormous faith in spirit, 
 i.e., the act of thinking, of reflection. 
 
 In general, I should say that I have hardly known anyone 
 who made the effect of genuine intellectual development the 
 test and criterion of the value of everything as much as she. 
 I have known but one other person also a woman: who 
 so consistently reflected upon her experiences, digested them, 
 turned them into significance or meanings for future use. Her 
 readiness, her intuitions in dealing with new situations, were 
 not the result of falling back (as administrators are wont to
 
 122 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 do) upon preformed practical habits or by continued medita- 
 tion and turning over in mind, into a net meaning special prece- 
 dents, but of the translation of prior experience. Thus her 
 experience was at her ringer tips when needed. I often think 
 that Roosevelt's knowledge of politics is the only analogue of 
 Mrs. Young's knowledge of educational matters with which 
 I am acquainted. And I should be inclined to guess that the 
 latter's was the more reflective of the two. Her belief in mind, 
 in spirit, in thinking, and her consequent belief in freedom for 
 teacher and pupil, were consonant with her personal practice.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE CITY NORMAL SCHOOL 
 
 IT ROM the University Mrs. Young left for a year of 
 * travel and study abroad, carrying into effect the 
 plan she had given up some years before. This was 
 not her first trip abroad. On two former occasions she 
 had made trips to Europe during the summer holidays. 
 In this trip, however, she went leisurely through many 
 of the European countries: England, Scotland, and 
 Wales ; she studied schools in France, Germany, Switz- 
 erland, and Italy. She was not only busy with schools 
 and study of life and history in these countries, but she 
 kept in touch with Chicago through an extensive corre- 
 spondence. Her friends in Chicago continually sup- 
 plied her with newspaper clippings on political and 
 educational affairs in the city, and in addition wrote 
 what came within their own experiences. When she 
 returned at the end of her year she was up to date in 
 affairs of the schools as fully as if she had been at 
 home. 
 
 Soon after her return from Europe Mrs. Young was 
 asked by the superintendent of schools to take the 
 principalship of the Normal, which at that time was 
 " left vacant by the death of Arnold Tompkins. She 
 accepted the offer and took up her work at the opening 
 of school in September, 1905, six years after having 
 severed her connection with the city schools. Like" other 
 positions which she had occupied, this one came un- 
 sought, but, like them also, it found her fully prepared 
 
 123
 
 124 Elia Flagg Young 
 
 to do the work required. A careful study of the records 
 of the school during her four years of service shows 
 the power of her personality and the breadth of her 
 grasp of education in city and nation. 
 
 It may be important to note casually the history of 
 the institution of which Mrs. Young was made prin- 
 cipal. As a county normal, and for some years after 
 it was taken over by the city, the school had been under 
 the management of Francis W. Parker. It had attained 
 a wide reputation during this time as a school of ad- 
 vanced ideas and practices. Following Parker the 
 work was taken up by Arnold Tompkins, whose doc- 
 trines of education were based on idealistic conceptions 
 which had much to do with keeping the school on a 
 high plane of accomplishment. Under the leadership 
 of these men "The Child" had been apotheosized. 
 More emphasis had been placed upon the ideal aspects 
 of education than upon the education of children as 
 they really existed in street and tenement of the city. 
 Under such conceptions of education the Chicago 
 Normal School had come to occupy an almost inde- 
 pendent place as a college apart from a great city 
 system, its faculty and course of study developed from 
 ideal scholastic considerations. The superintendent is 
 reported to have said in 1902 that after having given 
 an address to the school on its responsibilities to the 
 city members of the faculty held an indignation meet- 
 ing because of his suggestion. 
 
 That an effort was being made by the Normal School 
 and the superintendent to bridge this gap between 
 theory and practice may be seen by the report of the 
 superintendent in 1903.
 
 Administration of Normal School 125 
 
 During the past year the Normal School has been brought 
 into closer connection with the work of the elementary schools 
 than ever before. The heads of the various departments have 
 visited the elementary school, have worked with the committee 
 of principals in preparing courses of study and selecting material 
 for work, and have conducted most of the institutes given to 
 the elementary teachers, besides working in the Normal exten- 
 sion classes. . . . The Normal School faculty are sure to acquire 
 a more complete knowledge of the school situation in Chicago, 
 and to be thereby the better prepared to undertake the work of 
 training teachers. . . . The increase in the responsibilities of 
 the Normal School must inevitably lead to the employment of a 
 very high grade of teachers there. The instructor who has 
 merely a book knowledge of academic and professional studies, 
 and who might succeed in giving graduates of the high school a 
 knowledge of educational theory, cannot successfully stand the 
 test of undertaking the instruction of trained and experienced 
 teachers in the city schools. 
 
 In a school of this sort, under the control of men 
 with strong ideas, there is always the danger that the 
 faculty may become indoctrinated and thus merely 
 exponents of particular theories and points of view. 
 A school dominated by a personality and a highly indi- 
 vidual philosophy of education may become effective 
 within a -limited and a preconceived realm of work, 
 but it is probably not qualified to meet the needs of a 
 cosmopolitan city. 
 
 When Mrs. Young entered the Normal School she 
 found a faculty thus developed, and one of her most 
 difficult tasks was to break through the crust of philo- 
 sophical and educational doctrines dominant at the 
 time. That she should succeed in completely remaking 
 a faculty, with new outlook and more independent con- 
 trol, was too much to expect in a period of four years, 
 but that she did improve matters is beyond question.
 
 126 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 From "ier first day as principal she offended the sense 
 of many members of the faculty by refusing to state in 
 some concise way "her point of view," her philosophy 
 of eduction. From bitter experience with the futil- 
 ity of t^ese statements she refused to make any such 
 formulations, " for," said she, " all that people desire 
 me to Jo is to give them some stock phrases which 
 they can use on all occasions instead of doing their 
 own thinking." Her patience was tried by the con- 
 tinued appeal to "the pedagogical child," and finally 
 she resorted to sarcasm and sharp words to have ideas 
 and ideals of real children dominant in faculty dis- 
 cussions. 
 
 During her work as principal of the Normal School 
 Mrs. Young, unlike her predecessors, refused to become 
 the mentor of her school, and demanded free and inde- 
 pendent judgment on the part of both faculty and stu- 
 dents. A characteristic statement of this demand is 
 taken from minutes of a faculty meeting: 
 
 It is the desire of the principal to consult freely with members 
 of the faculty concerning matters about which there are any 
 questions, but, on the other hand, when persons are appointed to 
 work out plans in committee or otherwise, they should not expect 
 the principal to formulate a plan so that the report will be from 
 the principal rather than the true representative belief of the 
 committee. A faculty meeting which consists merely in endors- 
 ing something propounded by a member of the faculty or by the 
 principal, is no faculty meeting at all. The faculty meeting 
 should be a place for free discussion of all objections. Objec- 
 tions need not be thrown out in a combative way, and objections 
 need not be entered only when doubts are felt ; but when any 
 proposition is not thoroughly understood it should be expressed 
 in the meeting. Our attention is often misdirected : we are apt 
 to ask ourselves what is wanted, rather than what should be.
 
 Administration of Normal School 127 
 
 In another connection she says: 
 
 There is danger of the departments of the College outlining 
 the work in such a way that the critic teachers will become 
 mere agents of the departments. It must rather be cooperative. 
 In the last few years many changes have been talked about, and 
 most teachers can speak fluently of developing the subject-matter 
 in a natural way, but, in really doing the thing, the same old 
 formal work exists, and the only change is in the close relation- 
 ship between teacher and child. 
 
 Intellectual freedom meant more than the formal 
 recognition of the right of a person to speak on ques- 
 tions. In discussing educational principles in the faculty 
 at one time it had been necessary to drop the plan 
 already formulated, because "the mixture of elements 
 is so diverse among the individuals of the faculty that 
 there are some who know the whole subject and can 
 talk glibly on it; and these individuals, by their assert- 
 ive form of argument, shut off discussion before the 
 matter was well started." 
 
 Students were to have the same freedom in their 
 judgment and work as members of the faculty. Mrs. 
 Young was afraid that supervising teachers might inter- 
 view the student-teachers more frequently than neces- 
 sary. She said it would be better for the students not 
 to feel that teachers were continually trying to improve 
 them. Students would be better off if they were not 
 spoken to every day about their work, but in this matter 
 the critic teacher was to feel free to use her judg- 
 ment. In another connection she points out that the 
 student-teacher is not a child and must be accorded 
 consideration due her power to assume responsibility. 
 She is to be considered for the time being as the teacher 
 of the room, and must be given the same support
 
 128 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 and encouragement as the regular teacher. Student- 
 teachers go to their work with the benefit of academic 
 and pedagogical instruction, and do not go as " girls," 
 but as " if they had something important to deliver for 
 which they are responsible teachers." This attitude 
 can only be obtained by treating the students with the 
 spirit that goes with that of the teacher. She took the 
 position in regard to the college teacher and critic 
 supervisors of practice students that the same custom 
 should obtain in the schoolrooms that governs the inter- 
 course of well-bred people outside the school : that for 
 two supervisors to discuss a student-teacher in the room 
 where she was teaching a class would be an exhibition 
 of rudeness and ill-breeding that would not be tolerated 
 in well-bred society; that to discuss a child's mentality 
 in his presence and the presence of classmates was 
 unpardonable; that to mention the poverty or wealth, 
 the home conditions, the physical peculiarities, or any 
 handicap in such a way that the child knew the remark 
 referred to him, showed either a lack of judgment or 
 an unsympathetic nature in the speaker. 
 
 In one of the faculty meetings Mrs. Young discussed 
 individual differences and the necessity of giving oppor- 
 tunity to each one to grow in his own way. Teachers 
 tend to usurp the power of the child to grow. They 
 have little faith in his native impulses to grow in the 
 right direction, therefore they spend too much time 
 teaching and directing. 
 
 Some consider it necessary only to plant the germs of thought 
 in such a way that the individual student can tend their growth 
 according to his own needs, while other teachers think it neces- 
 sary to stop and tend the growth of each germ planted, leaving
 
 Administration of Normal School 129 
 
 little for the individual to do. Probably it might be well to cut 
 down the length of time for recitation and attempt to do more 
 germ planting. 
 
 Her attempt to throw upon others the responsibility 
 for thinking and for formulating each his own doctrine 
 of education was only one of her aims in the school. 
 Year after year she persisted in her endeavor to bring 
 the school into harmony with the needs of the city. As 
 already pointed out, the policy of the school had been 
 undergoing a transformation during the previous year 
 or two, but no one had ever been in the school who 
 understood the needs of the city as did Mrs. Young. 
 In each of her reports to the superintendent she strikes 
 at some phase of this problem. In 1907 she says the 
 elementary-training course has a double duty, the first 
 being the preparation of students to teach every subject 
 in an elementary school, and the second being a neces- 
 sity to give students opportunities to go ahead along 
 some line of special interest. The course prepared had 
 both required subjects to meet the former need, and 
 elective subjects to provide for the second. In 1908 she 
 is more explicit in her views of the relationship between 
 the Normal School and the city: 
 
 For many years it was the custom of the Chicago Normal 
 School to conduct its practice work upon outlines of study pre- 
 pared by the several departments of the College. While much 
 might be said in favor of this plan, it unconsciously creates in 
 the student body an attitude of depreciation toward the course 
 of study in use in the city system. If there are deficiencies In 
 the course of study for the city which time will make plain 
 and doubtless there are the Normal School should carefully 
 analyze them and suggest to the superintendent the best reme- 
 dies for them, and so develop a closer relation between the pre- 
 paratory work of the student and their work as teachers.
 
 130 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Following this line of thought, the regular course of study for 
 the city has been made the guide for the practice schools. 
 
 It is doubtless evident from her emphasis upon this 
 relationship between the Normal and the city schools 
 that one of the first undertakings of Mrs. Young would 
 be that of the course of study in the Normal itself. 
 Each year she injected new questions and suggestions 
 and set new committees to work on special problems 
 in connection with it. Work which she had striven years 
 to get into the elementary school as an assistant super- 
 intendent she now found possible to give as preparation 
 for the young teachers of city children. Nature study, 
 art both graphic and industrial English, and music 
 were the objects of most careful reconstruction and 
 improvement. 
 
 In respect to nature study, increased demands in 
 the course of study for the elementary schools gave her 
 an opportunity to effect much-needed reforms in the 
 teaching of that subject in fact, a double opportunity. 
 In order that the Normal School might be able to pre- 
 pare teachers adequately for the new demands an 
 important change was made in its course. The required 
 major in science which had before been interpreted as 
 a major in physics or biology was now divided equally 
 between physics and biology. Reform is equally appar- 
 ent in the nature-study outlines that began to be issued. 
 Emphasis was placed upon the scientific character of 
 the material and mode of approach, and upon the kind 
 of courses of most value for children in the city. All 
 work in nature study was organized to take the form 
 of occupations for children. Work with plants and 
 animals and with physical and chemical materials was
 
 Administration of Normal School 131 
 
 put within reach of the grades, giving opportunity for 
 study in the school garden and for experiments with 
 electricity. A definite attempt was made to use the 
 activities of other departments, particularly along the 
 line of construction. 
 
 To effect improvement in the conditions of English 
 teaching in the schools Mrs. Young had recourse to a 
 drastic move. She cut in two the classes in English in 
 the Normal School. Each department, moreover, was 
 asked to contribute, through conferences and commit- 
 tees, to the improvement of English. Mrs. Young her- 
 self studied the English in use in the practice schools. 
 Her report in 1907 foreshadows her introduction into 
 the schools, several years later, of special teachers for 
 defective speech. She says: 
 
 A command of the mother tongue should be a sine qua non 
 of every young man and young woman receiving a diploma from 
 a normal school. Children with slovenly enunciation and 
 incorrect and meager English pass from the elementary into the 
 high school, and with but slight improvement graduate into 
 the normal school, and finally, with some advance but with 
 the careless, defective speech still characteristic, from the normal 
 into the teaching corps. 
 
 In relating the graphic to the manual arts Mrs. 
 Young exerted a most marked influence in the school. An 
 incident of her first year illustrates how fully she appre- 
 ciated the value of good work and was determined to 
 secure it. Some window-boxes made by students in a 
 manual-training class had been placed in a conspicuous 
 place in the building. They evidently represented poor 
 workmanship. Upon request for an explanation for 
 the display of such work she was told that it represented 
 the efforts of the students. "Take them down," she
 
 132 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 said; "things here should have beauty as well as use." 
 Her efforts at getting beauty into construction necessi- 
 tated a reorganization of the art department and the 
 bringing in of people who had notions in this direction 
 and competency to put them into practice. In her report 
 to the superintendent for 1907 she says: 
 
 To render efficient service in helping solve the problem of early 
 training for the eye and the hand, leading to a training in the 
 technique of different arts and industries, the departments of 
 the graphic, the manual, and the industrial arts in the Normal 
 School have made a determined and, it is hoped, an intelligent 
 effort to work in cooperation. It has been said that to propose 
 a scheme of cooperation of artists is to launch oneself on a 
 stormy sea, but in this instance the teachers of art, manual train- 
 ing and construction in the college and practice schools were 
 highly cooperative, not because they were trying to work 
 amicably, but because of a comprehensive grasp of their prob- 
 lems. In present conditions, however, there are difficulties 
 almost insurmountable. The chief obstacle lies in our limited 
 knowledge of the beginnings of art in the immature mind. A 
 fondness for using the hand and for bright-colored material in 
 making things does not, perforce, develop the artistic sense. It 
 may lead to a pagan form of art such as that of the American 
 Indian. Yet, notwithstanding a strong feeling that the problem 
 is still before us, the departments prepared and printed, in 
 June, 1907, an "arts course" which testifies to the gain arising 
 from the harmonious work of the different arts. 
 
 Of the teachers she had selected she speaks, in 1909 : 
 
 This school is fortunate in having for teachers of arts those who 
 are each intimate with the subject matter of their special arts, 
 and are also clear as to the blending of individuality and social 
 service that must inspire the ideal and its realization if that 1 
 art is to be of genuine worth to the schools of the city and to 
 education. In physical education effort has been directed toward 
 that higher degree of sure, graceful control of the body which 
 increases health and the power of endurance. In musical educa- 
 tion the acquaintance with good music has been enlarged;
 
 Administration of Normal School 133 
 
 meanwhile note-reading, technique, and interpretation have been 
 developed beyond the standard of chorus singing only. The 
 things constructively and decoratively designed in the depart- 
 ment of graphic arts, and made in the departments of manual 
 and industrial arts, bear testimony to the continuous endeavor to 
 combine skill and the artistic in every product. 
 
 Departments of the college were made responsible 
 for the educational bearing of their courses. In this 
 respect Mrs. Young's work was distinctively profes- 
 sional and pedagogical and produced most marked re- 
 sults. Each head of a department was required to give 
 a "special method" course to students practicing in 
 his particular subject, and in this course he advised 
 students as to the work in the grades. The plans of stu- 
 dents for their teaching thus came to be influenced 
 directly by the college department. In addition to this 
 arrangement the courses in general psychology and 
 education were changed. General psychology was 
 added to the curriculum, and gradually the amount of 
 time given to it was lengthened. A course in the prin- 
 ciples of education took the place of an older course 
 in the ideals and the history of pedagogy. Mrs. Young 
 herself taught classes in what she called "The School," 
 meaning by it the practical, social bearing of the sub- 
 ject. She also gave a course in practical ethics to the 
 freshmen. She saw to it that students were trained 
 both in theoretical and practical ethics, a "mark" in 
 social efficiency attesting the latter aspect of the train- 
 ing. Conduct of student and teacher came to take the 
 place of a theoretical consideration about "the child" 
 or " the school." In order that full opportunity might 
 be given students to gain a practical insight into teach- 
 ing, Mrs. Young reconstructed practice schools, select-
 
 134 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 ing for the purpose typical schools of the city. She 
 dropped a school in an American district and took up 
 one where foreign children predominated, in order that 
 students in practice might understand one of the big 
 problems of the city, with the result that " an encourag- 
 ing element amid the difficulties of the situation is that 
 the faculty, in its endeavor to make the Normal School 
 an efficient force in the city, is brought closer than 
 before to the problems confronting cities in America." 
 In short, in every department such reorganization of 
 courses took place. Mrs. Young's effort everywhere 
 was to make the work fit the needs of teachers entering 
 the city schools and at the same time serve to stimulate 
 students to further educational efforts. Her ideal was 
 that of efficiency in practical teaching. Actuated by 
 modern educational theory based on science, she in- 
 sisted that teachers understand the problems of educa- 
 tion and the needs of the city in particular, and then 
 be trained to execute their ideas in practice. Her feel- 
 ing of responsibility of the Normal School for ideals 
 to be applied in the city was expressed clearly in her 
 speech at the dedication of the new college building 
 in 1906. 
 
 The ideals of well-warmed, well-ventilated, and well-kept 
 school buildings, developed by the conditions in this Normal 
 School must be effective in the various schools to which its 
 graduates are assigned. The care of materials used in class 
 teaching in the college and the practice schools affects the atti- 
 tude of the student body toward the means furnished by the 
 city for the use of pupils and teachers in making the work of the 
 school concrete. 
 
 When Mrs. Young entered the Normal School she 
 found the practice work in charge of a general super-
 
 Administration of Normal School 135 
 
 visor or head critic. She found that many of the 
 teachers in the college never visited their students in 
 the practice school. Students in practice were respon- 
 sible primarily to the head critic, and wherever any 
 conflict arose between college department work and the 
 classroom teaching in the practice schools the college 
 department was ignored. In order to make the in- 
 structors of the college responsible for the bearings of 
 their own teaching she set about to reorganize this 
 condition. In the first place she required that plans 
 prepared by students for their class work in the practice 
 schools should go to college instructors for approval 
 as well as to critic teachers. At her first faculty meeting 
 on entering the school she brought up this matter in the 
 form of questions which led to the reorganization. 
 
 Should the lesson plan be corrected by the critic teacher only, 
 or is the college faculty to be considered in the criticism of 
 plans? What is the point of union between the college and the 
 critic department? Is the college to teach certain subject-matter 
 without in any way ripening the knowledge of the critic depart- 
 ment? Is the critic department to teach the pupils without in 
 any way affecting the experience of the college instructors in 
 adapting the subject-matter to the pupils? 
 
 Likewise, marking the success of students in practice 
 was thrown upon the joint judgment of college in- 
 structor, critic teacher, and practice principal rather 
 than the individual judgment of the head critic. Finally 
 the head critic was replaced by the departments of the 
 college as supervisors of work in the practice schools. 
 The tendency of this arrangement was to make the 
 departments responsible for the outcome in practice of 
 their teaching in classroom, and, at the same time, to 
 emphasize the departmental idea and organization.
 
 136 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Administration of a highly departmentalized school so 
 as to keep work evenly balanced in the practice school 
 is much more difficult than it had been where the entire 
 responsibility for supervision rested upon the head 
 critic. During Mrs. Young's administration of the 
 school she succeeded in bringing about harmony among 
 the various departments so that their supervision of the 
 practice work was at all times effective. 
 
 Practice-school work was to Mrs. Young a constant 
 problem and study. To keep the entire system of inter- 
 ests in practice schools and college together was on her 
 mind always. She regarded the name " practice school " 
 as unfortunate. She insisted that it was misleading to 
 understand this school as one to which students added 
 nothing and in which they practiced or experimented 
 " hit or miss " with classes of children. 
 
 No greater contradiction could be found than the identifica- 
 tion of mediocre practice schools with advanced methods and 
 ideals of teaching. It would be parallel with the futile attempts 
 made sometimes in the endeavor to cultivate in children a nice 
 perception of the quality of harmony of musical tones through 
 practice on instruments that have lost their tone and are out 
 of tune. 
 
 She assumed it as her first duty as principal of such a 
 school to effect an organization of forces that would 
 develop a high degree of cooperation between all the 
 various parts and with the schools of the city. She was 
 fully aware that it was possible for each division of the 
 Normal School to move along, using the language of 
 cooperation and social efficiency, and yet committing 
 itself to isolated details which were not the true embodi- 
 ment of the normal-school ideal. "A comprehensive
 
 Administration of Normal School 137 
 
 view of the Normal School and its fullest life can be 
 founded on a true social life only a life involving a 
 'give and take' activity of all divisions." 
 
 Mrs. Young never forgot the personal interests and 
 welfare of her teachers and her students. In the old 
 .Normal Training Class, formed while she was assistant 
 superintendent, she secured pay for the students sub- 
 stituting in order that they might partly defray their 
 expenses in traveling about the city to the schools in 
 which they went to work. When she came to the 
 Normal School as principal she found much being made 
 of the general assembly hall. From two to four in the 
 afternoon of each day students met here for their study 
 of lessons for the next day. The arrangement which 
 brought a great crowd together without the direct influ- 
 ence of any one in particular was by no means pleasing 
 to Mrs. Young, and she set about ridding the school 
 of it. In doing so she arranged for the school to close 
 its afternoon session at two, thus releasing many stu- 
 dents coming from distant parts of the city which had 
 compelled them to travel home late at night. By cutting 
 off two hours at the close of each day she was com- 
 pelled to rearrange the hours of students in the practice 
 schools. The arrangement was made for all teaching to 
 be done during the first two hours of the morning ses- 
 sion in the practice school, thus giving the regular critic 
 teacher the rest of the day to handle her own room to 
 the satisfaction of parents sending their children to 
 these schools. These two acts of shortening the day of 
 students and confining practice to the morning hours did 
 more to add efficiency to the work of students and 
 faculty than any other act of her administration.
 
 138 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 In 1906, departmental work was introduced, of 
 which she says : 
 
 a successful introduction of the departmental plan was made in 
 the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades of the practice schools. The 
 plan is vertical, not horizontal, since the teaching of a subject in 
 successive sections in the same grade is even more stupefying 
 than that of instructing in every subject taught in the grade. 
 The change of rooms by the classes affords mental and physical 
 rest for the children. The establishment of a room as the head- 
 quarters for history, or art, or geography, or literature, tends 
 to make that room a museum and library of the subject in its 
 elementary-school phase. 
 
 One further effort of Mrs. Young in her short four 
 years at the Normal School deserves attention. She 
 originated and edited, with the aid of the faculty, the 
 Educational Bi-Monthly. Her ideal in this magazine 
 venture was twofold. In her own words, " the maga- 
 zine serves as a clearing-house for those who are work- 
 ing along special lines, and also as a means for con- 
 veying to teachers some of the latest thoughts on the 
 theory of education and on subject-matter." As already 
 pointed out, the school had during most of its history 
 been dominated by the theories of some principal. Mrs. 
 Young wished the faculty to become independent con- 
 tributors to educational thought and work, and a 
 magazine, written and edited as well as printed by 
 the school, would serve for such an incentive to inde- 
 pendence. The continuation and growth from year to 
 year of the magazine is evidence of whatever of value 
 it had for the faculty or the city elementary schools. 
 
 In addition to establishing and writing for the Edu- 
 cational Bi-Monthly, the only literary work of Mrs. 
 Young during her principalship of the Normal con-
 
 Administration of Normal School 139 
 
 sisted in reports to the superintendent and addresses 
 before educational bodies. In 1907 she delivered be- 
 fore the National Education Association an address on 
 "The educational progress of two years, 1905-1907." 
 Her discussion of persons and movements in social and 
 educational institutions showed careful reading and 
 deep thinking. She was clear and keen in her discus- 
 sion of higher education, especially on the relation of 
 college and university to the individual. She quoted 
 President Wilson of Princeton in saying the "object is 
 to get the college instruction into the lives of the under- 
 graduates." The curricula of higher institutions showed 
 a more liberal attitude than formerly toward scientific 
 study. In the preparation of teachers she insists that 
 progress in professional training is being made. Her 
 faith in coordinating vocation and academic education 
 under one roof in high schools foreshadowed her efforts 
 some years later in fostering "cosmopolitan" high 
 schools. 
 
 Great progress is reported in health work among the 
 schools of cities. Likewise, social work and social 
 responsibility for children in cities are reported as 
 growing. Questions of advancement of salaries of 
 teachers, consideration of freedom of teachers, and 
 output of educational literature are dwelt upon at 
 length. On one of these questions she says: "If the 
 public-school system is to meet the demands which 
 twentieth-century civilization would lay upon it, the 
 isolation of the great body of teachers from adminis- 
 tration of the schools must be overcome." With this 
 address, and particularly with the sentence quoted, it is 
 evident that Mrs. Young had carried her doctrine of
 
 140 Ella Flagg 'Young 
 
 the freedom of teachers much farther than when she 
 resigned from the district superintendency and was pre- 
 pared to take up administration on this platform should 
 opportunity offer. 
 
 At a conference on "Secondary Education" at 
 Oberlin College, June 19, 1908, Mrs. Young gave an 
 address on the subject, "Reciprocal relations between 
 the subject matters in secondary education." (Educa- 
 tional Bi-Monthly, vol. Ill, pp. 75-84.) She discusses 
 recent tendencies in industrial education in high schools 
 which she says seem to foster a caste system in educa- 
 tion. A statement of the history of efforts to unify the 
 curriculum of the schools shows that the efforts were 
 expended mainly on elementary schools, leaving second- 
 ary education untouched. The tendency in high-school 
 teaching has been to keep courses narrow and segre- 
 gated, so that experience gained in one subject was not 
 consciously made to function in other lines of endeavor. 
 A paragraph from the address will show how the 
 author attempts to give life and unity to the elements 
 of the course. 
 
 There must be some standard by which the value of the 
 academic work can be tested, and in that test the duration and 
 effectiveness of the knowledge acquired should be large elements. 
 If the power to use anything connected with a subject disappears 
 soon after the completion of the work in it, then it cannot be 
 that the study gave either culture or discipline. If a boy is 
 headed toward medicine and he shuffles off everything learned 
 in geometry and yet becomes a cultivated man, the cultivation is 
 not due to time wasted in geometry. If a girl becomes a cul- 
 tured woman the culture is not due to time spent on biology, 
 long since forgotten. The fanciful notion that things of which 
 one has not been conscious, or that generalizations upon which 
 one has not reflected, influence the intellectual and moral judg-
 
 Administration of Normal School 141 
 
 ments, making the character of the mind and of the individual 
 truer, is not based on any data that will stand analysis. Educa- 
 tion is activity in the process of growth. If the young people 
 in the secondary stage of education are not each reinterpreting 
 his or her individual experiences, readjusting knowledge already 
 gained, to new and broader and deeper questions that arise out 
 of conditions peculiar to other departments of systematized 
 knowledge, then the judgment is not becoming truer, keener. 
 
 Another address of this period, given before the 
 National Education Association, at Cleveland, Ohio, 
 in 1908, was called "The school and the practice of 
 ethics." In this address the plea is made for the devel- 
 opment of ethics through the " cultivation of the judg- 
 ment of values in conduct." The notion one must ac- 
 quire is "that character develops in childhood through 
 the exercise, the activity of the ethical judgment." As 
 in all forms of life, Mrs. Young insists that the child 
 grows through actually doing deeds and being respon- 
 sible for his own conduct, and not by being directed in 
 all vital matters by outsiders. This application of 
 ethical teaching is in line with the author's earlier 
 treatise on the subject already noticed. 
 
 From the personal standpoint Mrs. Young took her 
 work at the Normal School as the most serious business. 
 She felt It as a personal obligation to see that principles 
 and habits of action should be established on a firm 
 foundation. At the same time she insisted that the 
 Normal School, like the individual, should never be- 
 come a closed system. There should always be openness 
 to conditions in the changing social environment com- 
 bined with a flexibility that would result in a progressive 
 adaptation to the new. The school should have that 
 poise which comes through the consciousness of a " rich
 
 142 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 and subtile activity in enlarged aims." It should be 
 abreast of the best thought on educational theory and 
 practice. The men and women in its college and 
 practice-school faculty should be strong in their special 
 work, and "the principal must be singularly effective 
 in arousing that spontaneity of action which will give 
 an upward and onward movement not only to the whole 
 school but to the whole school system." 
 
 As in all other positions in the school system, Mrs. 
 Young's administration of the Normal School was fear- 
 less and positive. She was always outspoken in her 
 convictions and did not hesitate to tell the individual 
 or the faculty what she thought on questions at issue. 
 She was so bent on things she considered worth while 
 that she spared neither herself nor others who were 
 responsible for them. Lack of willingness to devote 
 one's entire energy to the problems and the welfare of 
 the school on the part of faculty or student branded 
 such a person as wanting in loyalty to the cause. 
 Toward such a person she showed neither patience nor 
 sympathy, often indicating her disapproval by sharp 
 and blunt word or rebuff. She acquired among many 
 in the school a reputation for being hard because of 
 her outspoken attitude toward persons who seemed to 
 lack loyalty to the interests of the school, which ab- 
 sorbed her entire energy and time. On the other hand, 
 she encouraged and helped most graciously and ten- 
 derly both teacher and pupil struggling to do a duty. 
 For independence, for initiative, for loyalty, and for 
 devotion to the school shown by others, her most active 
 cooperation was never wanting. 
 
 Even after leaving the principalship for the superin-
 
 Administration of Normal School 143 
 
 tendency of schools she kept an active interest in the 
 Normal School and appeared on the platform at nearly 
 every commencement exercise. She fostered its work 
 and its interests to the very end of her official connec- 
 tion with Chicago schools.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 REORGANIZING A TIME-HONORED INSTITUTION 
 
 FOR nearly twenty-five years before her election to 
 the superintendency of the Chicago schools, Mrs. 
 Young had been taking an active part in discussions 
 and deliberations of the National Education Associa- 
 tion. She once said: "When I first began to attend 
 the meetings of the National Education Association 
 women were permitted to sit in the gallery and listen 
 to discussions carried on by the men." The meeting 
 referred to by Mrs. Young in this statement was held 
 at Ogdensburg, New York, in 1867, the year that 
 Mr. W. H. Wells was president, before the Associa- 
 tion had changed its name to a national organization. 
 From this obscure position as a listener to an active par- 
 ticipant in affairs, and finally to the most prominent 
 place in the Association, is the story of Mrs. Young's 
 rise in the educational world. She had come to occupy 
 a place in the intellectual movements of the country as 
 a whole, and she was known to have a message when- 
 ever she appeared on the program of public meetings. 
 Her progress during the time of attendance of the 
 National Education Association kept pace with the rec- 
 ognition of women in affairs of the country. The story 
 of this progress will be told briefly in the following 
 pages. 
 
 Mrs. Young's first appearance as a speaker on the 
 program of the Association was at the Chicago meet- 
 ing in 1887. At that time she spoke on the topic, 
 "How to teach parents to discriminate between good 
 
 144
 
 A Time-Honored Institution 145 
 
 and bad teaching," a subject which grew immediately 
 out of her experience as a principal of schools. In 
 1893 she appeared again on the general program on 
 "Grading and classification," showing in this address 
 the tendency in the schools and offering suggestions 
 which she was trying to put into operation as assistant 
 superintendent. "Literature in elementary schools" 
 was given in 1896, a subject on which she had been 
 working for many years. It is interesting to note in 
 all the addresses which Mrs. Young made on various 
 occasions that she always discussed problems in which 
 she was then actively engaged in the schools. In 1903 
 she talked on the subject, " Saving time in education." 
 This subject had its origin in her work at the Univer- 
 sity in the elementary school. Her next address was 
 given in 1906, a year after she became head of the 
 Chicago Normal School, on " Influence of the city 
 normal school or training school," which was again 
 an expression of immediate and pressing experience. 
 In 1907 she discussed the question of "The proper 
 articulation of technical education," and in 1908, "The 
 school and the practice of ethics," and also "Utiliza- 
 tion of experience in home environment." 
 
 It will thus be seen that Mrs. Young was a familiar 
 figure in the circles of the Association. Her influence 
 was strongly felt along the lines of her interest, and 
 people had come to have a high degree of confidence 
 in her ability and integrity. That she took for her 
 topics of discussion in all her formal addresses matters 
 in which she was vitally interested was in itself a com- 
 mendation of her sincerity and her qualification for 
 leadership in educational ideas. Up to the time she
 
 146 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 became superintendent of schools she had not been very 
 influential in molding the policies of the Association, 
 though she was a well-known figure among the active 
 membership. 
 
 In order to understand the influence of Mrs. Young 
 in the history of this organization it is necessary to 
 point out briefly the career of the National Education 
 Association. The institution is almost as old as Mrs. 
 Young's work in the schools of Chicago. For many 
 years it struggled along with only a small membership, 
 kept in existence by the energy of a few leading men 
 in the service of the schools. By and by its member- 
 ship grew into large proportions and its power as an 
 organization grew at the same time. A permanent 
 fund was established and a corporation formed. For 
 several years many important investigations were un- 
 dertaken and reports made which have been of tre- 
 mendous influence in the schools of this country. The 
 reports of the "Committee of Ten" and the "Com- 
 mittee of Fifteen," issued during the nineties, have had 
 the most widespread influence. After a time the policy 
 of the Association as regards investigations seems to 
 have changed, and the money of the institution to have 
 been conserved. A permanent secretary was appointed, 
 and affairs were managed by a board of trustees. More 
 and more power was taken over by this board, until the 
 members of the Association had little to say about 
 affairs of vital import. Investment of money of the 
 corporation, essential matters of meetings and pro- 
 grams, and selection of officers, while ostensibly in the 
 hands of the members of the Association, were in 
 reality in the hands of the board of trustees.
 
 A Time-Honored Institution 147 
 
 Out of this arrangement grew a very powerful body 
 of managers, an oligarchy, controlling the Association. 
 Opposed to its growing power were the individuals who 
 believed in democratic principles of government. The 
 consequence was that there grew up two factions in the 
 Association and occasional " revolts" against the domi- 
 nation of the board of trustees, or at least of certain 
 members of that body, in the management of the Asso- 
 ciation. One writer, opposed to the board's control, 
 says: 
 
 This company of men managed matters very shrewdly. They 
 occasionally placed an eminent educator in the presidency of 
 the Association and took pains to have a number of prominent 
 men and women upon the program for its annual meeting. They 
 kept down opposition and insurrection by the usual methods of 
 the political boss. Objectors were usually snubbed and rele- 
 gated to obscurity. When an " insurgent " gathered sufficient 
 strength to promise real trouble he was usually "seen," prob- 
 ably given an office or taken into the " clan," and the revolt 
 quelled. The " good " were rewarded with offices, with assign- 
 ment to committees where they had the privilege of sitting 
 beside the great and voting " right " on matters presented, and 
 by places on the program. A study of the programs for the 
 past years will repay the student for the time consumed, and 
 will reveal the names of a limited number of these " faithful " 
 appearing regularly on the platform of the Association in com- 
 pany with the distinguished educational speakers who were also 
 asked to appear. 
 
 Before 1910 there had been several minor " revolts," 
 both within the board of trustees and in the organiza- 
 tion at large. A notable case of the former was that 
 led by Pearse, of Wisconsin, against the action of cer- 
 tain members of the trustees in attempting to oust him 
 from that body. His success and the notoriety of the 
 case formed backbone for the uprising in Boston which
 
 148 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 resulted in the election of Mrs. Young to the presi- 
 dency of the Association. Quoting from the writer 
 mentioned above, we find that 
 
 The spirit of insurgency was so strong that the members took 
 the matter upon the floor of the Association at its annual meet- 
 ing where the election of officials is consummated. The name of 
 Superintendent Young of Chicago was substituted for that of 
 the regular nominee and she was elected by an overwhelming 
 vote. This was the first time in the history of the Association 
 that the report of the committee on nominations had been turned 
 down. Every possible political trick and every ounce of political 
 pressure were brought to bear to prevent Mrs. Young's election 
 by the nominating committee and to prevent her friends from 
 taking the matter to the floor of the convention. Threats, 
 flattery, and denunciation of those who were supporting Mrs. 
 Young and of the methods used in advancing her candidacy 
 (methods which had throughout been perfectly open and frank), 
 and promises of future advancement, all were used wherever it 
 was thought possible to mollify the progressives, or to induce 
 them to come into camp and "be good." It was all without 
 avail. The membership was for Mrs. Young and they were not 
 to be denied. 
 
 In the face of this bitterness engendered by the older 
 element resenting a break in its power, Mrs. Young's 
 name was presented by a minority of the nominating 
 committee. Preparation for this event had been made 
 by the friends of Mrs. Young for several weeks. The 
 moment was tense. In presenting her name, the speaker 
 said: 
 
 I understand that the presentation of such a report as I am 
 making is without precedent in the annals of this Association, 
 and I am glad that this woman, who has been breaking records 
 ever since she started, is breaking the record of this Association 
 now. . . . For the first time in the history of this organization 
 a woman has been mentioned for the high office that has been 
 filled for so many years by so many distinguished men, and for
 
 A Time-Honored Institution 149 
 
 the first time we have a woman who stands, frail and little as 
 she is, towering above those that are about her. She has not 
 merely a national reputation, she has an international reputation. 
 I regret any mention of a sex line in any contest. We are 
 presenting the name of Mrs. Young as the best human being 
 for this position. She has the record of having taught from the 
 primary school to the university. She has done something that 
 thrills every one of us; when you can say that man or woman 
 past fifty starts in and obtains a university education, it is some- 
 thing to thrill one with admiration. . . . We have a woman 
 to speak for us in Mrs. Young who will not speak the word 
 wrong. It has been said that too many presidents come from 
 Illinois. . . . Mrs. Young comes not from Chicago, but from 
 this whole country. There are women and men from north 
 and south, from east and west, and from the center, all anxious 
 to see her given a chance to do in this Association what she has 
 already done in Chicago. 
 
 When the vote was called for, out of 993, 617 
 favored the substitution of Mrs. Young's name for that 
 of the majority candidate. The domination of an 
 oligarchy had been broken. Bitter words grew out of 
 this act on the part of the meeting. These words were 
 echoed and re-echoed in various forms in newspapers 
 and educational magazines and in some of the speeches 
 of men in the Association. An editorial in a leading 
 educational journal said that 
 
 To take this action [nomination of Mrs. Young from the floor 
 of the convention] in the interest of a particular candidate who 
 had not received the support of a majority of the committee 
 duly chosen to select a president, and in the face of the fact that 
 the committee had nominated a man of national reputation and 
 of long and devoted service to the Association, was injudicious, 
 to say the least. 
 
 This entire editorial was an adverse criticism of the 
 convention's action. In the same journal at a later 
 time an editorial writer criticizes Mrs. Young severely
 
 150 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 for indorsing all that was done for her election and the 
 methods resorted to. The writer says there were even 
 threats of vengeance upon any one who dared to oppose 
 her. She had an all-absorbing ambition and determi- 
 nation to win at any cost. The appeal, according to 
 this writer, was made to a house packed by members of 
 the Association from Chicago, New York, and Boston. 
 If such a policy were to be pursued, the writer suggests 
 that the constitutional provision for a nominating com- 
 mittee should be repealed. In another educational 
 journal an editorial says the atmosphere of the Asso- 
 ciation was like that of a political convention. It claims 
 that Mrs. Young was elected in spite of over-zealous 
 efforts of would-be friends and would make an excellent 
 president. " The only regret is that her election could 
 not have been more dignified." 
 
 Such words represent the death throes of a system 
 intrenched behind narrow partisanship and not the atti- 
 tude of the vast majority of people. Two editorials, 
 one from a daily paper of the time and the other from 
 a western educational journal, express the more general 
 feeling: 
 
 If the duties of president of the National Education Associa- 
 tion require an administrator possessing preeminently the highest 
 faculties of the profession of teaching, then the organization has 
 voted wisely in electing to its highest office Mrs. Ella Flagg 
 Young, the superintendent of the Chicago public schools. In a 
 year's service in the latter capacity Mrs. Young has disclosed 
 characteristics and abilities manifold and admirable endow- 
 ments sufficient to overcome all the perplexities of her difficult 
 position and to make her the most successful and progressive 
 executive the system has ever had. If there were no doubts a 
 year ago as to her fitness for the task, there were at least preju- 
 dices. But with the certain evidences of her achievements in the
 
 A Time-Honored Institution 151 
 
 various functions of her office, even these prejudices have dis- 
 appeared, and there exists a comforting satisfaction that the 
 direction of the schools is in the proper hands. The National 
 Education Association will find that its chief officer is a woman 
 of the utmost tact a tact which has soothed and reconciled 
 conditions of petulant insurgency in the Chicago schools after 
 years of annoying turmoil. It will find her a woman of fine 
 mental strength, clear of view, just and sympathetic, guided by 
 principles instead of arbitrary rules, flexible but guilty of no 
 craven concessions. Her educational qualifications, her pride in 
 her calling, her capacity for administration, her experience in 
 various branches of instruction, are a rich equipment and one 
 which should add definitely to the prestige and power of the 
 association of which she is head. 
 
 In the Nebraska Teacher, the editor wrote: 
 
 The election of Mrs. Ella Flagg Young as president of the 
 National Education Association is another victory for good 
 government in that organization. Mrs. Young has made a 
 good record as superintendent of the second largest system of 
 schools in this country. She was the popular choice of a very 
 large majority of the teachers of the country. There was every 
 reason why she should be chosen for the great honor which this 
 position carries with it. Her election emphasizes the principle 
 so well established in Nebraska, that such honors should go 
 unsought to the one who will honor the position because of 
 great service to the educational cause. Mrs. Young's election 
 is fitting not only on these grounds, but because of the opportu- 
 nity to recognize the great service of women to education in this 
 country. It is fortunate that the active members of the National 
 Education Association at Boston had the courage of their 
 convictions. 
 
 Upon her election to the office, Mrs. Young uttered 
 the words that crystallized the opposition into the " old 
 guard," a name based upon the control exercised by 
 the board of trustees for many years. She expressed 
 not only the hopes of men and women who had been 
 fighting for a more democratic form of government
 
 152 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 in the National Education Association, but expressed 
 again the spirit that had animated every act of hers 
 in educational administration. When called to the 
 platform and introduced, she said: 
 
 It is with a deep sense of the honor you have conferred upon 
 me and the responsibility I assume in accepting the presidency 
 of this Association that I enter upon the duties of the position 
 to which you have elected me. I am well aware that in one 
 short year a president may not influence the character of the 
 Association in a marked degree. The president may, however, 
 conserve the good which has been developed in the past and 
 assure one advance step in the future. I hope to assist in abolish- 
 ing the distinction in membership between those who can and 
 those who cannot pay comparatively high dues. This will never 
 be a truly democratic organization while it shuts out from active 
 membership the men and the women who receive small salaries 
 teaching in a cramped environment where people have not yet 
 learned the value of the teacher. Something certainly can be 
 accomplished toward advancing the spirit of fellowship among 
 teachers so that all will be interested in education, not only in 
 the rural district, the village, or the town in which their 
 personal work is carried on, but throughout the land. 
 
 During her year as president Mrs. Young made her 
 position as to democratizing the Association felt to a 
 degree that it did take " one advance step." From the 
 very first she was opposed and fought. The legality of 
 her election at Boston was questioned, and her own 
 part in that event was made the object of criticism by 
 the powers that had been controlling the organization. 
 The board of trustees and the secretary undertook to 
 run affairs without consulting the president, not so 
 much out of disrespect for her, as for the reason that 
 this had been the custom. Before the year was over 
 they were fully aware that this custom would have to 
 be changed and it would be necessary to include the
 
 A Time-Honored Institution 153 
 
 president as an active, though ex-officio, member of that 
 body. Mrs. Young thought that good business man- 
 agement required full and technical intelligence as to 
 the disposition of the permanent funds of the Asso- 
 ciation. In expressing this idea she was voicing the 
 demands that had been heard from individuals for sev- 
 eral years. But her statement of this need brought 
 abuse and an effort to discredit her as president on the 
 part of opponents of progress. 
 
 In spite of opposition the meeting at San Francisco 
 the next summer was a successful meeting. A move- 
 ment was set under way at that time to put the Asso- 
 ciation's affairs as completely as possible out of the 
 hands of any political body and to make the active 
 members responsible to a degree not possible before. 
 Officers were elected who had been known as fighters 
 for the principle on which Mrs. Young won at Boston. 
 Mrs. Young's address on "The hypothesis in educa- 
 tion," already referred to, was devoted to a discussion 
 of an educational and not a political subject. 
 
 Of course, the fight which Mrs. Young had got into 
 did not cease with her year as president of the Asso- 
 ciation. The following year in Chicago the whole issue 
 was raised again and she was brought into it in the most 
 bitter kind of fight. In Boston teachers from New 
 York City had been active leaders for Mrs. Young. 
 In fact, one member from that city had presented the 
 minority report which nominated her. It seems that 
 this had been done with a distinctively partisan and 
 political object, as the course of events in Chicago dem- 
 onstrated. Long before the meeting took place every 
 effort possible was made to draw Mrs. Young into a
 
 154 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 deal whereby she should return the favor to a New 
 York woman which had been shown her. She was 
 accused of not playing the game, and her friends were 
 criticized in private and on the floor of the convention 
 at Chicago. In spite of all pressure and all bitterness 
 of a personal nature against her and Chicago teachers, 
 Mrs. Young refused to be drawn into the struggle. It 
 was her influence more than any other force, though 
 she exercised this by withholding from the controversy, 
 which brought through the issues before the Associa- 
 tion: The adoption of the changes to the constitution 
 of the Association. 
 
 It is evident that the time was ripe for a revolution 
 in the management and the ideals of the National Edu- 
 cation Association. Changes made in the constitution 
 liberalizing the conditions for active membership; new 
 impetus given to investigations and leadership in move- 
 ments of the day; greater appeal to the "men and 
 women who receive small salaries teaching in a cramped 
 environment where people have not yet learned the 
 value of the teacher"; and, finally, the rehabilitation of 
 faith in democratic control, were some of the accom- 
 plishments of this revolution. Mrs. Young's great help 
 came through the power she had to throw on the side 
 of the teachers of the country against a narrow oligar- 
 chical institution. 
 
 That her election to the presidency of the National 
 Education Association came during the first year of her 
 work as superintendent of Chicago schools shows the 
 general esteem in which she was held throughout the 
 country. Her fight for democracy in that organization 
 was merely the application of the principles she had in
 
 A Time-Honored Institution 155 
 
 mind to put into operation in the city schools of Chi- 
 cago. As the following chapter will show, conditions 
 in the National Education Association were consider- 
 ably less intricate and less permeated by selfish interests 
 than were the affairs of the city schools. By far the 
 larger problem of administration lay in the city, and it 
 is to that problem that Mrs. Young devoted the best 
 of her energy and constructive powers.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DEMOCRACY AND THE SUPERINTENDENCY OF 
 CHICAGO SCHOOLS 
 
 "ITTHEN Mrs. Young left the assistant superintend- 
 ency in 1899 the schools were in a turmoil over 
 the question of the teachers. Salaries, study, promo- 
 tion, and tenure of office were questions agitating the 
 minds of teachers and board and superintendent. To 
 Mrs. Young the most important question was that of 
 the efforts to reduce teachers and supervisors to mere 
 clerks, to automatons under the direction of a respon- 
 sible head, of a superintendent and the board of edu- 
 cation. For the first time in the history of Chicago 
 schools, teachers began to agitate over organization for 
 mutual protection and to secure ends of their own. 
 Mrs. Young left because the situation was in confusion 
 and there seemed no immediate hope of securing relief. 
 From the day of her resignation from the schools 
 until her re-election to the superintendency ten years 
 later, this agitation over the status of teachers and 
 teacher-organization was kept up. Her immediate 
 predecessor in the office of superintendent inherited the 
 controversy from his predecessor, but instead of being 
 able to bring order out of the chaos, he added fuel to 
 the fire. To questions of salary and promotion, he 
 added that of a secret marking system which made the 
 teachers' standing dependent wholly upon the will of 
 principal or superintendent with no intelligent recourse. 
 Teachers were driven for self-protection to affiliate 
 themselves with labor organizations having ends out- 
 
 156
 
 Democracy and Superlntendency 157 
 
 side those of the school. During these years of con- 
 troversy between superintendent and teachers' organi- 
 zation the public was given to understand that the 
 difficulty rested upon the fact that the teachers' federa- 
 tion was composed of professional agitators. Not once 
 was it made clear that this organization was the result 
 of the conditions under which Chicago schools were 
 governed. At any rate, the city grew sick of contin- 
 ual friction in the management of school affairs, and 
 demanded relief. 
 
 It was with satisfaction to the public that quiet was 
 restored from the day that Mrs. Young was elected 
 to the superintendency. Teachers at once felt that 
 they could count on a fair deal because they knew and 
 trusted the superintendent. Secret markings were abol- 
 ished, teachers were heard in their own defense, and 
 very shortly were called into councils to advise the 
 superintendent on vital affairs in the schools. They 
 were consulted in the making of courses of study and 
 selecting of textbooks. Salaries were readjusted, and 
 promotional work reorganized so as to give each one 
 a fair chance for advancement and growth. Instead of 
 fighting the organizing of teachers, Mrs. Young en- 
 couraged it because she believed, as she expressed 
 before the so-called Senate Committee in 1915, that 
 
 the growth of the grade teachers in a general civic sense, and 
 recognition of the rights of the human being, has been remark- 
 able since the organization of the teachers' federation. . . . Not 
 only the federation, but the various clubs are beneficial. What- 
 ever makes teachers appreciate the life of the community, the 
 spirit of the nation to which they belong, helps the school. The 
 great drawback in education in the past has been that teachers 
 knew their books and didn't know life outside.
 
 158 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 From the point of view of history the work of Mrs. 
 Young as superintendent, obscured by the recent con- 
 troversies so bitterly waged, cannot be rightly judged. 
 Only time can tell how permanent and how strong are 
 the changes and the institutions for which she was 
 responsible. But, judged from the standpoint of the 
 unity of spirit prevailing among the elementary-school 
 teachers of the city during her administration, her work 
 was unique. In one place in her testimony before the 
 committee mentioned above, she remarked in passing 
 that "when I was a teacher we went meekly to the 
 institutes that we were summoned to attend by the 
 superintendent." In the teachers' councils which Mrs. 
 Young called together, there was none of this meek 
 coming together because summoned by the superintend- 
 ent. Instead, the councils were the livest and most out- 
 spoken of meetings, and each teacher was anxious to 
 get her position before the superintendent and was 
 encouraged in this effort. 
 
 But Mrs. Young did not find the administration of 
 schools a bed of roses. As pointed out in the opening 
 chapter of this book, she reached a point where every 
 move she made was fought The last two years of her 
 term as superintendent were comparatively ineffective 
 because of the determined opposition and efforts to rid 
 the schools of her service. A discussion of this con- 
 troversy in all of its details would involve too extended 
 a treatise and would be without value in showing the 
 position Mrs. Young occupied at the time. So many 
 interests and so many aspects of the questions are in- 
 volved that a clear and unbiased statement is difficult 
 to make. It is the .burden of this chapter, however,
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 159 
 
 to set forth this controversy in as brief and fair a way 
 as possible, even though it be at the expense of com- 
 pleteness. Of one fact there is no doubt in all this 
 controversy, and that is that every act of Mrs. Young 
 can be given the widest publicity without any fear of 
 finding it questionable or dishonorable. Her purpose 
 to serve the schools never wavered through the entire 
 time, and from a "heckling" board meeting she would 
 hasten to some piece of work providing for the better- 
 ment of schools, or children, or teachers. 
 
 "Interests" represented on the school board lie at 
 the foundation of most of the ills of city schools, in 
 Chicago as elsewhere. This point has already been 
 made clear in the first chapter and so is here referred 
 to only to introduce the elements of interests that fig- 
 ured in the troubles which beset the superintendent of 
 schools during the past two or three years. Probably 
 in last analysis, financial influences have been back of 
 the political machinations in the controversy. More 
 specifically, these took the form of the selection of text- 
 books, dealing with organized teachers, and the selec- 
 tion and purchase of building sites. In addition to 
 these questions, which are essentially financial, there 
 arose, in common with the movement throughout the 
 country, a question of religious and sectarian influences 
 in school matters. All of these elements were present 
 in the fight on Mrs. Young during the last years of her 
 office, and a discussion of some of them will show the 
 position she took. Some form of organization and 
 amalgamation of these forces finally succeeded in driv- 
 ing her from the superintendency. 
 
 The first matter that broke the calm of administra-
 
 160 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 tion was the question of the selection of textbooks 
 in reading and spelling. Under oath, Mrs. Young 
 stated before the Baldwin Committee in 1915 the facts 
 of this controversy, a brief summary of which follows. 
 In June, 1912, she recommended to the school man- 
 agement committee that a series of readers should be 
 adopted. She made her recommendation of the series 
 she had selected and then says : " In connection with the 
 adoption of those readers I had my first experience of 
 what almost every superintendent in the United States 
 has met before going out of office." An agent of one 
 of the books not adopted threatened to " get" her, and 
 was one source of trouble for her. In adopting a 
 spelling book at the time she says : 
 
 Unfortunately, I said to some members of the committee on 
 school management that board members were trying to influence 
 me. . . . When we got into committee I was asked for the 
 names of members trying to influence me. Of course, I had to 
 say "yes," and stated who they were. From that day the 
 intention was to move me out of office. 
 
 Mrs. Young's experience in dealing with textbooks 
 had up to that time been singularly free from entangle- 
 ments that are common in school administration. At 
 that time it was not so much a matter of the direct 
 action of any company as it was a demand on the part 
 of board members for union-made books. Without 
 doubt, pressure was being brought to bear on these 
 members by the interests that had put them in their 
 position for just such emergencies. Largely out of 
 this controversy over textbooks grew the bitterness that 
 led Mrs. Young to withdraw from the superintendency 
 in 1913.
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 161 
 
 The second element in the fight between Mrs. Young 
 and the board was over the teachers being affiliated 
 with organized labor. The attitude of Mrs. Young on 
 this matter has been pointed out in connection with her 
 testimony before the Baldwin Committee. Again, the 
 issue was probably at bottom a financial one. Organ- 
 ized teachers were becoming too strong for the 
 recognized "interests" in the board itself and were 
 demanding consideration as to living conditions that 
 the board found it expensive to meet. Mrs. Young's 
 first split with the members of the board over the fed- 
 eration came when the board and the teachers had 
 separate bills before the legislature for a system of 
 pensions. One member of the board expressed fear 
 that teachers federated with labor might be a menace 
 to the schools because of a provision of such organiza- 
 tions to use the strike as a means of gaining their ends. 
 Mrs. Young refused to accept such an interpretation 
 of the teaching force of Chicago. Again and again 
 this matter came up in one form or another until finally 
 a rule was introduced making it illegal for a teacher 
 to belong to outside-controlled organizations, though, 
 as explained at the time, the rule was aimed specifically 
 at the teachers' federation. The fight in the lower 
 courts over this rule has gone in favor of the teachers, 
 but in the meantime Mrs. Young left the superin- 
 tendency. 
 
 As an essential part of this controversy over the 
 organization of teachers came the fight to reduce sal- 
 aries in order to meet a deficit in the board's funds for 
 schools. One of the things, as already explained, for 
 which Mrs. Young contended during her superintend-
 
 1 62 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 ency was for better salaries for teachers. When the 
 question of retrenchment arose during 1915 she said 
 she thought the teachers of the city would be willing 
 to contribute a part of their time that the schools might 
 hot be closed on account of a shortage of money. Her 
 plan in this suggestion was to forestall any cutting of 
 the salary schedule for the coming year because she 
 feared, from her previous experiences with such mat- 
 ters, that the cut might be permanent. The committee 
 handling this question accused the federation of block- 
 ing the move and blamed Mrs. Young for abetting 
 them in this. The finances of the board are so man- 
 aged that no one seems to be able to tell where a deficit 
 is likely to arise, or why. In her testimony already 
 referred to, Mrs. Young explains the system in vogue, 
 of transferring funds from one department to another 
 to meet the demands of the time. She also pointed out 
 that the so-called deficit in the educational department 
 was not as great in proportion as that in the adminis- 
 trative department, yet the latter had been reported 
 without a deficit. The idea she intended to convey 
 was that her opponents were trying to show that her 
 work and her department had been run into debt be- 
 cause of poor management, while as a matter of fact 
 no such condition existed. In connection with this 
 struggle over the so-called deficit, Mrs. Young believed 
 that with the increased taxation voted by the legisla- 
 ture the board should borrow money for current ex- 
 penses until such increase became available for the 
 schools. 
 
 Whether irregularities existed in selecting building 
 sites has not been conclusively proven, though the gen-
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 163 
 
 eral public believes such to have been the case. News- 
 papers and committees of investigation have gone over 
 the evidence, but have never gone far enough to show 
 what was the real situation. In this matter, as well as 
 that of leasing school-board property, the practice in 
 Chicago has been uncertain because it has always de- 
 pended upon the makeup of the board from time to 
 time. Mrs. Young was consistently opposed to a slip- 
 shod policy, and gained much of the enmity against her 
 in this way. 
 
 Mrs. Young's fight for the unit system as opposed 
 to the dual system of vocational education was one of 
 the most important forces in making her a target for 
 Some of the interests back of the school board. She 
 was undoubtedly one of the greatest individual factors 
 in forestalling the scheme to divide the educational 
 system and fund of this state and city. At the same 
 time all prominent teachers' organizations took an 
 active part in this struggle, and among them the most 
 active was the federation, which thus gave its enemies 
 one more incentive for its elimination. 
 
 Religious issues injected into school affairs of Chi- 
 cago were partly the result of a general agitation in this 
 country against mixing religion with public policy. Ar- 
 guments against Mrs. Young based on this agitation 
 were common. In her testimony before the Baldwin 
 Committee she said: 
 
 There are people who have intended to injure me. They said 
 from one end of this country to another that I am a Catholic. 
 I am a Presbyterian, and yet I have been called a Catholic, and 
 it is not a week since I was told that I ought to get the word 
 out that I am not a Catholic. I said " No." I cannot say any-
 
 164 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 thing, for I respect many Catholics, and for me to come out in 
 the papers with this announcement would indicate that there was 
 something disgraceful in being a Catholic. Yet it has been 
 said that I go out of this hotel every morning to early mass ; that 
 I have an altar in my room ; that I have a son a Catholic priest. 
 
 The first open break in this matter, though religion 
 was not explicitly mentioned, came in the refusal of the 
 board to confirm one of Mrs. Young's nominees for a 
 responsible position. Her own religious views were 
 always liberal, for, though she classed herself as a Pres- 
 byterian, she followed David Swing in his formation of 
 the Central Church. Opposition against her on religi- 
 ous grounds could only have been originated by persons 
 with selfish purposes. That she has been open-minded 
 in dealing with so delicate a subject as religious and 
 political beliefs, all her dealings with men and women 
 prove. Her belief in the integrity of the public schools 
 was so strong that she lamented the intrusion of sec- 
 tarian and political and social issues. White or black, 
 native or foreign-born, believer or unbeliever, were all 
 to her human spirits and were given such opportunity 
 as citizens of a democracy were entitled to. She pro- 
 claimed in public on numerous occasions her conviction 
 that every child in this country should be educated in 
 the public schools of the country. 
 
 All these factors entered into the fight against Mrs. 
 Young as superintendent during the last two or three 
 years of her term. In July, 1913, she presented her 
 resignation to the board of education. A great amount 
 of agitation sprang up against this action and the board 
 refused to accept her resignation. She was given every 
 assurance of support by the board at the time, and she
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 165 
 
 consented to go on with her duties as superintendent. 
 But she lived to regret her action. In this act she vio- 
 lated a principle that had governed her official record 
 from the beginning, and that was to leave a place that 
 she felt she could not fill without being hampered by 
 bickering. Ostensibly, the reason she gave was that 
 she could not work while a part of the board stood 
 against her policies. She was accused of playing poli- 
 tics by her move in resigning. Undoubtedly, most per- 
 sons in such a position would have to put up with a 
 divided board at some times. Mrs. Young felt, how- 
 ever, the force of the divided board, and she knew that 
 no constructive work could be done under such condi- 
 tions; therefore, she refused to trade by political 
 maneuvering in the position. As one writer puts it: 
 
 They didn't like her, first, because of the stand she took against 
 the schoolbook trust (she would not be manipulated by it), and 
 they didn't like her because she seemed to have too high an 
 ideal of her office. She stood as a complete obstructionist to 
 all efforts to speculate in school sites and to create real-estate 
 situations that any one might have private gain. And there was 
 also opposition on the part of the board because of the increasing 
 interest which the women of Chicago took in the schools over 
 which Mrs. Young was placed. 
 
 After the board refused to accept her resignation, 
 Mrs. Young again took up the work with her usual 
 earnest effort for the betterment of the schools. Mat- 
 ters seemed to move very smoothly, all too smoothly, 
 as events showed later on in the year. At the annual 
 election of superintendent in December of that year, 
 the board suddenly developed an opposition candidate. 
 Mrs. Young was taken by complete surprise. One of 
 her friends on the board came to her on the morning
 
 1 66 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 of the election to say that there would be opposition, 
 but she rested so securely in the belief that the action 
 in the previous July in asking her to reconsider her 
 resignation had been genuine, that she supposed oppo- 
 sition to her would amount to nothing. It seemed, how- 
 ever, that there had been a secret intrigue during the 
 previous few months which had built up a combination 
 to elect someone else to the superintendency. Some of 
 the principal movers in this opposition had been appar- 
 ently her friends, and not those who had openly fought 
 her in the board. So taken by surprise at the opposition 
 and the nomination of another candidate was she, that 
 in chagrin and anger, partly at her own stupidity, as 
 she has said, as well as at the double dealing of some 
 of the members, she left the board rooms at once. This 
 was the first step in her repentance for having been 
 persuaded to recall her resignation. Later she said: 
 
 Two years ago last July I violated one of my pet theories, 
 and I have always regretted it. I have always thought that 
 when a person resigns he should never go back to the position. 
 I have seen it work out a number of times. I resigned then, and 
 two weeks later the board of education refused to accept the 
 resignation. I thought the members meant what they said. I 
 was mistaken. If I had not gone back I should have escaped all 
 the trouble. 
 
 By a sudden and dramatic uprising, men and women 
 throughout the city demanded her return to the super- 
 intendency. Among many editorials in daily papers 
 this one gives the temper of the city: 
 
 Chicago never before gave such a testimonial to any citizen 
 as the meeting at the Auditorium, Saturday, in behalf of Mrs. 
 Ella Flagg Young. The vast hall was jammed, not with people 
 to see a show, but with solid citizens bent on showing their
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 167 
 
 confidence in the city's foremost educator and on righting the 
 wrongs done by politics to the city's schools. A native son who 
 had been elected president of the United States might feel 
 flattered at such a demonstration. The gathering of Saturday, 
 and the universal outcry from all parts of the city, show that a 
 democracy is not ungrateful for services rendered its children. 
 
 The mayor of the city took a hand in affairs and the 
 city witnessed the spectacle of two sets of officers trying 
 to fill the places on the board of education. Although 
 another superintendent had been elected at the time 
 Mrs. Young left the rooms, the board reconsidered its 
 action and put her back into the place. There was 
 nothing else the board could do. Pressure from newly 
 enfranchised women in Chicago was so insistent that 
 political forces were compelled to recognize the inter- 
 ests of the schools, at least ostensibly. But the two 
 years from the time of this action in December, 1913) 
 until her announcements of her resignation were one 
 continuous turmoil in board management of schools. 
 Hitherto unexpressed opposition on the part of the 
 men principals and some of the men teachers in the 
 high schools found more and more clear expression in 
 various ways against a woman superintendent. One of 
 the daily papers, up to this time a staunch supporter of 
 Mrs. Young, now by insinuation and by open attack 
 editorially proclaimed the necessity for a change in the 
 superintendency. Many persons of unbiased judgment 
 saw the hand of " interests " in the published state- 
 ments of the newspapers and the moves made to 
 " investigate " the schools. 
 
 In every way possible efforts were made to compel 
 Mrs. Young to leave the schools. It was generally rec- 
 ognized that she was the storm center about which all
 
 1 68 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 the controversy revolved. Political interests found it 
 difficult to handle the situation as long as she occupied 
 the superintendency. Some of these activities need 
 stating in detail. In the first place, in connection with 
 the deficit in school appropriations, an " efficiency" com- 
 mittee was appointed that undertook to cut teachers' 
 salaries in order to meet the shortage. Because, as al- 
 ready stated, Mrs. Young opposed this, and because 
 the teachers' federation opposed it, the fight ostensibly 
 against the latter organization was in reality a fight 
 against the superintendent, who figured so largely 
 as an exponent of organized teachers as against the po- 
 litical interests on the board. For several months this 
 committee wrangled, and ended by simply having made 
 matters unbearable for Mrs. Young. Not a single posi- 
 tive recommendation was made and carried out by this 
 committee, except to foster the attack directly on the 
 federation and to hasten the growing disgust of the 
 superintendent with a heckling policy. The attempts 
 of the common council to " investigate " the finances of 
 the school board were not aimed at Mrs. Young, though 
 even here the meaning was undoubtedly a political one. 
 A second aspect of this effort to drive Mrs. Young 
 from the schools was the policy of the mayor elected in 
 1915. Instead of making the appointments to the 
 school board in July, as was the requirement of the 
 case, he neglected to do so, and thus left the board as 
 it was then constituted to fight it out against the super- 
 intendent. Undoubtedly, he was unwilling to assume, 
 for political reasons, the responsibility of appointing a 
 board that might continue the task of making life mis- 
 erable for the superintendent, and, on the other hand,
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 169 
 
 he was unwilling to offend the powers back of this 
 fight by appointing a board that might favor her work 
 and retention. As evidence for this statement it is 
 merely necessary to call attention to the fact that as 
 soon as Mrs. Young's intention to leave the schools 
 was made public, the mayor immediately named seven 
 people for the vacant places on the board. 
 
 One other "investigation" of school affairs was 
 undertaken by a committee of state senators. The 
 resolution creating this committee was entered after 
 the adjournment of the senate, and, judged by its activ- 
 ity and history, was undoubtedly a part of the move- 
 ment to get rid of Mrs. Young. The author of the 
 resolution creating this committee was a close political 
 friend of the mayor, thus tying up more closely the 
 political interests back of the movement to rid the 
 schools of her influence. Testimony taken by this com- 
 mittee, as already pointed out, centered mainly about 
 the superintendent and the attack against the teachers' 
 federation. Openly the committee showed the greatest 
 respect to Mrs. Young, giving the widest publicity to 
 her statements and encouraging the public in believing 
 the investigation was for a real purpose of furthering 
 the schools of the city. Within the committee dissen- 
 sion arose because of the evident purpose of a majority 
 to carry on matters in behalf of the "interests" of 
 Chicago which offered "philanthropically " to defray 
 the expenses of the committee. Moreover, no further 
 indications of the meaning of this committee are nec- 
 essary when it 5s understood that the moment that Mrs. 
 Young made her announcement that she would not be a 
 candidate for re-election, it dropped out of existence
 
 170 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 and has not been heard from since. Opposition within 
 the committee itself could not have accounted for its 
 complete cessation, because a majority of the commit- 
 tee was in favor of the policy for which it had been 
 appointed. Politics back of the city government of 
 Chicago and the board of education was undoubtedly 
 the moving force in this investigation as well as other 
 activities mentioned, and the object of them all was to 
 rid the city of Mrs. Young without seeming to the 
 public at large, particularly the women voters, to be 
 fighting her. The methods of politics to cause friction 
 and dissension and yet keep in the background are so 
 well illustrated in the work of the last two years of 
 her superintendency that nothing further is necessary to 
 a complete understanding of her resignation. 
 
 In her resignation Mrs. Young wrote as follows: 
 
 Persistent discussion of the superintendency of schools in the 
 daily papers leads me to write you officially of the subject. 
 When I was re-elected, December 9, 1914, I intended to com- 
 plete the plans made for the school year ending June 30, 1915, 
 and on that date to sever my connection with the Chicago public 
 schools. When the school year closed a most perplexing situa- 
 tion existed. The board was confronted by a prospective deficit 
 varying from $600,000 to $1,350,000, according to the opinions 
 of different persons. In order to reduce the sum as much as 
 possible the board had adopted certain restrictions that were to 
 be effective until December 31, 1915: (i) the employment of 
 no extra teachers; (2) the non-increase of additional teachers; 
 (3) the non-recognition of increases in salaries because of pro- 
 motional credits ; (4) assignment of pupils to teachers of manual 
 training and household arts. Knowing that the enforcement of 
 these restrictions would subject a superintendent to adverse 
 criticism, I believed that my responsibility in recommending 
 higher salary schedules for principals and teachers placed on 
 me the duty of administering these restrictions, and I therefore 
 decided to remain until December 8, 1915. No deficit will con-
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 171 
 
 front the schools for 1916, and I shall gladly see my succes- 
 sor enter upon the duties of the office with the prospect of an 
 educational field cleared for work upon the problem of the 
 schools and their interests. 
 
 Mrs. Young did not release her hold on the affairs 
 of the schools even up to the very day of her departure. 
 Her last report was one defending the morals of the 
 high schools against charges made by persons whom she 
 considered enemies of the public high schools. Every 
 item of estimate for the following year was gone over 
 by her as painstakingly and conscientiously as if she 
 were going right on with the work. In this act the most 
 characteristic attribute of Mrs. Young came out. She 
 would not give up an office with the work disorganized 
 and confused. Even though her friends continually 
 urged her to let up on the amount of energy she was 
 putting into the place during the final days, she was 
 always there and always busy finishing the duties as she 
 found them pressing upon her. Her successor did not 
 need to spend weeks trying to catch up with the slack 
 of official matters. It was not that her successor might 
 be relieved, however, but that the schools might not be 
 left with some period of inattention and neglect. Her 
 interest was ever in the schools, and this interest lasted 
 to the closing day of her connection with them. 
 
 With her withdrawal from the Superintendency the 
 tension that had existed for several months was at once 
 relieved. The interests that had fought her at once 
 turned attention to a reorganization of management in 
 harmony with their own demands. The feeling of 
 unrest and expectancy was notably absent from the 
 board meetings. This relief in tension was noticeable
 
 172 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 in the speeches and pledges^of good-will at the meetings 
 immediately following Mrs. Young's departure. Un- 
 fortunately for the schools of Chicago, however, the 
 fight through which she had just gone seemed to bear 
 very little immediate fruit in the reorganization. 
 Merely to secure peace and good-will in management 
 is no sign of progress in school administration. The 
 difficulty had been in a politically organized board of 
 education, in the dominance of interests responsible for 
 appointments to that body. All that happened in the 
 new organization was a rearrangement of affairs suit- 
 able to these interests, so that harmony and peace 
 appearing were those of a temporary nature. The po- 
 litical board remains political. In time Chicago must 
 witness the same kind of upheaval in school affairs that 
 it has in the past. The present management is based 
 on exactly the same kind of uncertain status that has 
 always been the case, and no amount of ability and con- 
 scientiousness on the part of a superintendent can ever 
 make his tenure of office secure. In spite of the most 
 extensive publicity given through Mrs. Young to the 
 weaknesses of the school board during the past few 
 years, the public does not generally seem to realize the 
 necessity for changing matters. American faith in turn- 
 ing out one set of officers and electing another is the 
 only remedy employed in handling school affairs. 
 
 After the withdrawal of Mrs. Young the recognition 
 given her by citizens of Chicago in public meetings and 
 receptions inspired some of the members of the board 
 of education to offer a permanent and substantial recog- 
 nition of her years of service to the city. The sug- 
 gestion was that she should be made superintendent
 
 Democracy and Superintendency 173' 
 
 emeritus with a salary of five thousand dollars a year. 
 Mrs. Young stated to her intimate friends that she 
 would not accept such a position, even though it might 
 be offered her, and no one who had known her well 
 would have expected her to do so. When the matter 
 came up for consideration in a committee of the board 
 it was found to have considerable opposition. There 
 was a feeling on the part of some that it would be safer 
 for the interests of the board to be completely rid of 
 all of her influence. Arguments that this would be 
 without legal sanction and an expenditure of the public 
 money needed in other directions were made, so the 
 proposition was dropped and nothing further done 
 about it, except the passage of the following resolution. 
 On May 24, 1916, the board voted unanimously 
 
 that in humble acknowledgment of the unpayable debt of our 
 citizens to the wisest, the greatest, the most devoted teacher the 
 schools of our city ever have known, this simple record of the 
 official service and positions in public life of the first woman 
 superintendent of schools of the City of Chicago, Ella Flagg 
 Young, is spread upon the proceedings of this board of educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Mrs. Young retired from the office of superintendent of 
 schools January I, 1916. Her withdrawal from the system 
 terminated a period of service which started in the year 1862, 
 when she began as a grade teacher. In one year she was a head 
 assistant. Two years later she became the first principal of the 
 school of practice upon its creation as a part of the Chicago 
 Normal School. At the end of six years she was given charge 
 of the high-scho*ol class which developed into the South Divi- 
 sion High School. After three years she returned to the Nor- 
 mal School as professor of mathematics, for two years. She 
 then became principal of the Scammon School, which was fol- 
 lowed by her principalship of the Skinner School. 
 
 In 1887 she was made a district superintendent, which posi- 
 tion she held until 1899, when she left the service and became,
 
 174 ILlla Flagg Young 
 
 first, an associate professorial lecturer, and later, upon earning 
 her doctor's degree, a full professor in the department of edu- 
 cation of the University of Chicago. In 1905 she re-entered the 
 school system as principal of the Chicago Normal School, which 
 position she held until the year 1909, when she was elected 
 superintendent of the public schools of this city. 
 
 Mrs. Young was a member of the state board of education 
 of Illinois for twenty-five years. She was elected president of 
 the State Teachers' Association of Illinois in December, 1909, 
 and in the year 1910 she was elected president of the National 
 Education Association. 
 
 Be it resolved, That an engrossed copy of this resolution be 
 given to Ella Flagg Young in token of the highest esteem and 
 fullest appreciation of this board of education, as the represen- 
 tative of the citizenry of the City of Chicago. 
 
 Mrs. Young's immediate power thus passed out of 
 the school system which she had served for over fifty- 
 three years. By the action and enthusiasm shown in 
 the public receptions given in her honor during the last 
 month of her term of office, it was evident that her 
 efforts for the school children of Chicago had left a 
 permanent impress on the history of the city. And 
 while the plan she hoped to see put into operation to 
 take the school board out of politics as far as possible 
 was not realized, the city has a more adequate notion 
 of the problems and the dangers that beset the public 
 schools than it has ever had before. 
 
 Education of the public to its responsibility to watch 
 and to guard the interests of its children has gone on 
 at an increasing speed. So also has been the spirit 
 of unity among the teachers of the elementary schools. 
 Without an official connection with the schools, Mrs. 
 Young's influence cannot be removed from this in- 
 creased enlightenment of the community and a closer 
 comradeship among school teachers.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MAKING OVER A CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 
 
 the occasion of Mrs. Young's election to the 
 superintendency, July 30, 1909, one of the Chi- 
 cago papers wrote editorially as follows: 
 
 Her election to the superintendency of the Chicago public 
 schools comes as a fitting reward to one who has given her life 
 to their advancement. There is no phase of their work with 
 which she is not perfectly acquainted. There has been no 
 development which she has not watched closely, if indeed she 
 has not had a part in it. ... The election of a woman to be 
 superintendent of schools in the second largest city in the United 
 States is in violation of precedent. If any man among the can- 
 didates had possessed all the qualifications recognized in Mrs. 
 Young her sex might have been against her. The board of 
 education tried faithfully to select the best equipped individual 
 for the important place. The training, experience, and admin- 
 istrative ability of Mrs. Young were strong points in her favor. 
 That they were strong enough to win in spite of sex and in the 
 face of competition of a number of men of exceptional qualifica- 
 tions makes the honor shown her all the more notable. The 
 choice of a Chicago candidate is gratifying. There is some 
 advantage, at times, in introducing a leader from the outside. 
 But every such choice is distinctly discouraging to the ambitious 
 teacher or principal already in the ranks. The selection of 
 Mrs. Young has a twofold interest. It is a recognition of 
 faithful service in the Chicago schools. It will bring fresh 
 inspiration and encouragement to women teachers all over the 
 United States. The new superintendent has a great task before 
 her. The wise administration of Chicago's educational plant 
 demands the best that is in any individual. That Mrs. Young's 
 career may be marked by wisdom, harmony, progress, and 
 unquestioned success will be the wish of every citizen as she 
 takes up her responsible work. 
 
 175
 
 176 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 That the board of education made a thorough search 
 for a competent person for the position is evidenced 
 by the length of time spent in making the selection and 
 the number of persons examined for the place. Fur- 
 thermore, that her election to the position was partly 
 felt by many as an honor to her long service in the 
 schools is clear from the statement of a prominent citi- 
 zen and a man in an official position in the city at the 
 time. "We expected the board of education to honor 
 Mrs. Young," he said, "by making her superintendent 
 for a year while looking about for a man fully fitted 
 for the place. But imagine our surprise when the 
 schools began to move with unprecedented smoothness 
 and rapidity in the right direction and we were com- 
 pelled to recognize that instead of honoring Mrs. 
 Young, we were actually learning for the first time how 
 well the position of superintendent could be managed." 
 
 We have already pointed out the years of experience 
 and growth of Mrs. Young during her connection with 
 the public schools of Chicago. From the time she left 
 the schools in 1899 until the time of her election to the 
 superintendency she had been going forward in the 
 study and interpretation of educational thought of this 
 country and Europe. Her career at the University, as 
 we have already pointed out, brought her into connec- 
 tion with John Dewey and his work as an educational 
 thinker. From her year of travel in Europe she had 
 gained insight into the practice of education in the 
 principal cities of the world which in turn she could use 
 for the administration of schools. In the Normal 
 School she concerned herself directly with the teaching 
 force of the city and found many occasions even before
 
 Making Over a City School System 177 
 
 she entered into the office of superintendent to help 
 mold the trend of affairs in the schools. At no time 
 after leaving the schools ten years before had she lost 
 touch with the work, so that she needed to spend no 
 time learning her position after being elected. 
 
 The work done by Mrs. Young during the six years 
 of her office as superintendent cannot be told in a brief 
 chapter. Like all of her other work, the great thing 
 she did as superintendent was to mold and influence 
 character. From the office boy or girl in her depart- 
 ment to principals, from pupils to teacher, her influence 
 was continually going out and touching vital spots and 
 making life brighter for each one. In spite of the 
 breadth of the problems and the intricacy of the tasks 
 which Mrs. Young undertook during her administra- 
 tion, it is necessary to summarize in some fashion the 
 main events of the period. The first chapter of this 
 book gave a general summary of the period and showed 
 that the movements in Chicago were really nation-wide 
 tendencies. In the present chapter appear in some 
 detail the actual accomplishments of Mrs. Young as a 
 superintendent. 
 
 During the six years that Mrs. Young was superin- 
 tendent the schools of Chicago grew very rapidly in 
 numbers and in scope of work. A bare outline of the 
 principal items of growth will suffice to show how great 
 was the task of keeping up with needs of the city, to 
 say nothing of making headway in improvements. 
 However, Chicago schools have always had this race 
 to keep abreast the growing needs of the population, so 
 that the period from 1909 to 1915 is not unique in this 
 respect. It is unique, however, in that it actually made
 
 178 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 many revolutionary provisions in the education of the 
 people. All of this will be mentioned as we proceed. 
 The following table may serve to give some of the facts 
 in the case : 
 
 MEMBERSHIP OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 
 
 1909 1915 .. INCREASE 
 
 Primary grades Primary grades 
 
 135,490.3 147,473-8 ii,983-5 
 
 Grammar grades Grammar grades 
 
 86,514.7 101,630.7 15,116.0 
 
 Total increase in both grades 27,099.5. 
 
 It is worthy of notice in this connection that the 
 increase in membership during the six years is larger 
 in the upper grades than in the primary grades. Un- 
 doubtedly, many of the improvements made in the 
 schools during this period account for the continuance 
 of children into the upper grades. The most significant 
 thing of the work of Mrs. Young as superintendent 
 was her insistent appeal to keep the children going on 
 into the higher grades. A record of retardation dur- 
 ing this time shows the same facts as to success of chil- 
 dren in advancing as that of the table above. In a still 
 more effective way the membership of the high school 
 shows this point: 
 
 MEMBERSHIP OF HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 1909 1915 INCREASE 
 
 15,687.6 25,322.3 9,634.7
 
 Making Over a City School System 179 
 
 The increase, in other words, of the primary depart- 
 ment during the six years was eight per cent over that 
 of the date previously, seventeen per cent in the gram- 
 mar department, while in the high schools the increase 
 during this period was sixty-one per cent. Such an 
 increase in high schools was unprecedented in the 
 city, though throughout the country high schools have 
 been growing at a very rapid rate during the past ten 
 years. 
 
 In the number of schools the city was acquiring there 
 was also a rapid increase. In 1909 there were 239 
 elementary schools, while in 1915 there were 306; in 
 1909, seventeen high schools, and twenty-two in 1915. 
 The number of rooms in the elementary schools in 
 1909 was 5,552, while in 1915 it was 6,815. Teachers 
 in all schools in 1909 numbered 6,284; m I 9 I 5i 7*825, 
 a gain of 1,541 during the six years. Manual-training 
 rooms and cooking classes were added as rapidly as 
 money could be found for them; in 1909 there were 
 159 manual-training rooms, 61 cooking rooms; in 1915 
 there were 231 of the former and 199 of the latter. 
 
 During the same period the cost of education, like 
 the cost of everything else, increased. The fact that 
 education in industrial and vocational lines requiring 
 expensive equipment was growing so rapidly during this 
 period, and the fact that, as shown above, attendance 
 in higher grades grew so much more rapidly than that in 
 lower grades, are further sufficient reasons why the cost 
 of education in the city should go up at this time. The 
 table showing relative percentage of membership in 
 primary, grammar, and high schools and the total cost 
 per pupil is here given:
 
 i8o Ella Flagg Young 
 
 Percentage Percentage Percentage Cost per pu- 
 YEAR in primary in grammar in high pilin whole 
 
 grades grades school system 
 
 1909-1910.... 56.9 36.5 6.6 36.11 
 
 1910-1911 56.5 36.5 7.0 37.52 
 
 1911-1912 55-5 37-0 7.5 39.61 
 
 1912-1913 55-9 37-4 7-6 40.85 
 
 1913-1914 51.3 34.7 7.5 42.82 
 
 1914-1915 50.21 34.6 8.62 42.38 
 
 In addition to all the work of the office of superin- 
 tendent of schools, and in addition to the personal and 
 professional work with teachers through regularly visit- 
 ing schools and lecturing on educational matters, Mrs. 
 Young found it possible to carry out a tremendous 
 amount of constructive measures in all lines of admin- 
 istration. A mere list of her recommendations which 
 were adopted by the board shows in some measure her 
 activity during the six years of her connection with that 
 office. Many other measures and improvements during 
 the time were fostered by her and owed their success 
 to her energy and foresight, so that the list here given 
 of accomplishments represents only a part of her con- 
 structive work. Taken alone, however, the scope of 
 recommendations in this outline marks Mrs. Young's 
 work in the schools as an epoch. There is no attempt 
 to systematize the recommendations, except that they 
 are given in chrdhological order in time of their intro- 
 duction to the board of education. They are as 
 follows : 
 
 Recommendation to limit the amount of promotional work 
 of a teacher in one year to two courses, a recommendation 
 aimed against cramming, prevalent when she became superin- 
 tendent.
 
 Making Over a City School System 181 
 
 Change the system of rating teachers frorr percentage to 
 descriptive words superior, excellent, good, fair. 
 
 Added oral reading to the subjects in examination for admis- 
 sion to Chicago Normal College. 
 
 To furnish teacher, equipment, books, educational supplies 
 for the first open-air room. 
 
 To furnish teachers whose sole duty is to assist children to 
 overcome speech defects. 
 
 To appoint extra teachers (principals' clerks) in all high 
 schools and all elementary schools with a membership of 1,125 
 or more. 
 
 To appoint assistants to principals of high schools. 
 
 To limit the number of seats in classrooms of new buildings 
 to forty-five (a recommendation which has not been followed; 
 number now forty-eight). 
 
 To reduce the number of seats in classrooms in old buildings 
 from fifty-four to forty-eight. (Some principals have held on 
 to the fifty-four in order to keep up total membership.) 
 
 To adopt new sentence in the rule concerning deduction from 
 salary on account of absence because of personal illness ; pay 
 refund of difference between regular salary and amount paid 
 substitute from third to twelfth week of absence. 
 
 To introduce two-year vocational courses into high schools. 
 
 To introduce muscular system of penmanship. 
 
 Revise course of study in elementary schools. 
 
 Establish substitute centers in different parts of the city, 
 instead of gathering substitutes in superintendent's office daily. 
 
 Grant one-year certificates to teachers of the industries with- 
 out examination. 
 
 Appoint women teachers of physical education for girls in 
 high schools. 
 
 Permit special social workers to study the causes of absences 
 in one of the elementary schools. 
 
 Add a modern langxiage that has a great literature to lan- 
 guage course in any high school that has twenty-five pupils 
 applying for the language. 
 
 Establish Lucy S. Flower high school vocational school 
 for girls. 
 
 Establish review summer-classes in three high schools. 
 
 Establish industrial course in grades 6, 7, 8 in certain
 
 1 82 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 schools number increased from three to twenty-five in three 
 years. 
 
 Organize prevocational classes in technical high schools. 
 
 Elect councilors (deans) for girls in high schools. 
 
 Organize teachers' councils. 
 
 Submitted plan for presenting subject of personal purity to 
 high-school pupils. 
 
 Recommended conducting high schools on six-hour-a-day 
 plan. 
 
 That all schools be supplied and equipped with divided 
 window shades. 
 
 Recommended the adoption of a rotary (modified Gary) plan 
 in crowded schools. 
 
 Revised elementary course of study aiming to have greater 
 concentration of effort revision work done by committee of 
 principals and elementary-school teacher and superintendents. 
 
 That high school gymnasiums be kept open ninety minutes 
 after close of school, and elementary gymnasiums thirty minutes. 
 
 Reported on educational methods in Europe. 
 
 Submitted plan by which change in salaries would take place 
 on either January or June first. (Recommendation was not 
 adopted.) 
 
 That the bureau of vocational guidance be taken entirely into 
 the school system. 
 
 Many of these recommendations were far-reaching 
 in their effects upon the life of the teachers and children 
 in the schools. Mrs. Young's ideals of reducing the 
 numbers of pupils to a teacher, of keeping the children 
 and teachers well physically, of placing handwork in 
 all grades, particularly a kind in the upper grades that 
 would have a vocational value for the children, of 
 raising the intelligence of teachers by making them feel 
 free to express their own ideas and needs, the increase 
 of salaries to a point where teachers and principals 
 were economically competent to live all these ideals 
 found expression in the acts which she advanced and 
 fought for during her term of office. To say that the
 
 Making Over a City School System 183 
 
 schools have been transformed in some respects by her 
 work is to put the gains of the city mildly. 
 
 As already pointed out, no change was greater than 
 that of vocational work in the schools of the city. 
 Advocates of vocational training under a separate sys- 
 tem of schools, "a dual system," cannot realize in 
 Chicago that the secondary schools here are already 
 more largely vocational than they are anything else. 
 In numbers, students pursuing vocational and technical 
 courses outnumber those taking the purely academic 
 subjects. Cost of equipment alone has stood in the way 
 of pushing this kind of work far beyond its present 
 status. A report made in March of 1914 showed the 
 relative numbers of students pursuing the various 
 courses offered in the high schools. 
 
 COURSE MEMBERSHIP 
 
 Academic 13,063 
 
 Two-year college 276 
 
 Four-year vocational and technical 5,878 
 
 Two-year vocational 7,oio 
 
 Prevocational 624 
 
 Apprentice 482 
 
 Unclassified 167 
 
 Total membership 27,500 
 
 Total vocational 14,270 
 
 Per cent vocational 50 
 
 Per cent two-year vocational 25 
 
 In the above table the two-year vocational member- 
 ship is shown as including one-quarter of the entire 
 high school population. These courses were estab- 
 lished in 1910, showing that they had grown with 
 amazing rapidity to a place of such importance. A
 
 184 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 summary of the vocational and technical courses in the 
 school will show how completely Mrs. Young covered 
 the entire field in the preparation of children for their 
 life work. The list follows : 
 
 1. Industrial centers in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades 
 in twenty-five elementary schools as enumerated above. 
 
 2. Prevocational courses in the technical high schools made 
 for boys and girls over age but behind in their grade. Children 
 might enter these courses after having completed the fifth grade 
 of academic work. 
 
 3. Two-year vocational courses in the twenty-two high 
 schools of the city. These courses number eleven, as follows: 
 accounting, shorthand, mechanical drawing, designing, pattern- 
 making, carpentry, machine-shop, electricity, household arts, 
 printing, horticulture. Two or more of these courses are given 
 in all the schools, and most could be given by practically all. 
 
 4. Four-year vocational and technical courses, as follows: 
 commercial, office preparatory, technical, general trades, house- 
 hold arts, arts, and architecture. These courses are given not 
 only in the technical high-schools, but also in most of the schools 
 where the general, the science, and the normal-school prepara- 
 tory courses are given. There are eight high schools in the city 
 where the four-year technical courses are given. Mrs. Young 
 believed very strongly in the so-called " cosmopolitan " high 
 school, a school giving all lines of work, from Greek and art to 
 cooking and agriculture. 
 
 5. Apprenticeship courses in many lines of industry, such as 
 carpentry, electrical workers, plumbers, machinists, sheet-metal 
 workers, bakers, and druggists. 
 
 6. Two-year college courses, or junior-college work, for 
 technical education and engineering, in several of the high 
 schools. 
 
 7. Evening school courses in more than twenty vocational 
 lines of work. 
 
 Sufficient detail has been given in discussing the work 
 of Mrs. Young for vocational training to show what 
 the public schools can do under proper management to 
 handle the preparation of children for industrial and
 
 Making Over a City School System 185 
 
 social demands of the time. In all this movement no 
 one has grasped more fully than she the demands of 
 the times for practical education and the responsibility 
 of the public school to meet these demands. Her faith 
 in the possibility of the school to do such a task seemed 
 unlimited. In answer to the criticism of opponents of 
 the school as it now exists, that it had been established 
 for the narrower purpose of giving children power to 
 read and write, she always insisted that the school 
 belonged to the public and should be made to supply 
 the needs of the people as they arose, rather than to 
 try to hold to some supposed scheme held by men gen- 
 erations ago. It was this feeling that led her to build 
 up, as far as money and school board would permit, a 
 really modern educational institution during her six 
 years as superintendent. 
 
 Not only did Mrs. Young work to advance voca- 
 tional education, but she attempted to reorganize the 
 academic work of the schools. In 1910 she called 
 together committees of teachers, principals, and super- 
 intendents and gave over to them the charge of rewrit- 
 ing the course of study for the elementary schools, first 
 outlining the ideas which she hoped to see advanced by 
 the work. She arranged her committees by subjects in 
 the curriculum. By this means she secured a course 
 made out by a set of persons specializing in a particular 
 line of study. For thoroughness the course surpassed 
 anything done in the schools since the days when Super- 
 intendent Wells wrote out his course, based on oral 
 instruction, in 1862. Each committee systematized the 
 material in a given subject from the kindergarten to 
 the end of the curriculum.
 
 1 86 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 After a trial of three years on this course of study, 
 Mrs. Young again called together principals, teachers, 
 and superintendents and outlined a plan for concentrat- 
 ing effort in the grades upon particular lines of work. 
 The plan was an " intermittent" one whereby a subject 
 could be used intensively for a year and then dropped 
 for a year, or rather used in connection with other 
 subjects. Arithmetic was not to be studied as a separate 
 subject every semester for eight grades, but was to be 
 made auxiliary to constructive or handwork in some 
 of the grades. The same was true of penmanship and 
 some of the other branches. If a course could be 
 worked out on this principle and thoroughly under- 
 stood and appreciated by teachers, there is no doubt 
 that much time might be saved and the work made 
 more effective and real for the children. It follows the 
 recent discussions of a locus for each particular study, 
 making the material correspond to the interests and 
 needs of the growing children, rather than following 
 some preconceived logical arrangement of subjects. 
 
 In connection with her effort to make the academic 
 as well as vocational work effective, Mrs. Young made 
 the most systematic and tireless search for the best 
 books for the teachers and children. Reading and 
 spelling and penmanship were subjected to the most 
 careful revision. After many years of experimental 
 work on penmanship, she went back to the "muscular" 
 form of writing which she had used and advocated at 
 the time her work in the Skinner School won an annual 
 prize in the subject. She set a committee to work on a 
 set of school readers, after herself going over a large 
 number of them. This committee selected a set of books
 
 Making Over a City School System 187 
 
 for the school which have proved adequate in teaching 
 the subject in the grades. The unsatisfactory condition 
 of spelling led, through her efforts, to the selection of 
 a committee of teachers and principals to compile a 
 book on the subject for the schools. It is evident that 
 Mrs. Young in her zeal for vocational and technical 
 education did not forget the academic needs of the 
 schools at any time. 
 
 Even more anxiety was shown by Mrs. Young for 
 the physical welfare of children and teachers of the 
 schools. Her belief that health is a pre-requisite for 
 learning and intelligence drove her to work at all times 
 for this cause. Not only did she plan for those afflicted 
 with diseases or with maimed bodies, but her greatest 
 interest was to keep the sound child well and strong. 
 In her lectures before the teachers of the city she was 
 accustomed to say that "children come to school in 
 September ruddy and strong and leave the schools in 
 June pale and broken." It was her greatest wish that 
 this condition might be remedied, that the school might 
 itself be a place where the sick child might be made 
 well and the weak child strong. She encouraged open- 
 air rooms, furnishing teacher and equipment; she 
 fought with engineers for a sensible arrangement of 
 ventilation and for a chance to have the windows of 
 the rooms opened frequently enough to furnish pure 
 air. In the arrangement of windows for lighting she 
 not only provided for the best kind of blinds, but in 
 all the new buildings she insisted on the construction 
 of a room that protected, as far as possible, the eyes of 
 the children. 
 
 In the conduct of her office Mrs. Young's adminis-
 
 1 88 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 tration was unique in the history of the Chicago 
 superintendency. From her first day in office she 
 opened her door to teachers and the public, and during 
 the entire six years she was always accessible to anyone 
 at almost any time. Not only did she keep open house 
 in her office, but her policy was one of open publicity. 
 The newspapers of the city were given every opportu- 
 nity to print news of interest to the people on school 
 affairs. Her belief that the best interests of schools 
 were identical with those of the people led her to 
 encourage in every way possible the general intelligence 
 on public-school affairs. Her policy as an administrator 
 was to keep in the open in all of her dealings. She 
 refused to do anything that she could not freely discuss 
 through the newspapers with the people whose children 
 were in the schools. 
 
 Whether such a policy was easy every one can judge 
 who has had any experience with an office hedged about 
 as the superintendency is by political and private inter- 
 ests. A policy of publicity, of open dealing, is the most 
 disconcerting arrangement to the management of 
 politically controlled institutions. (Mr. Dewey's com- 
 parison of Mrs. Young and Mr. Roosevelt as to 
 preparedness on the lines of their interests might well 
 be continued in this matter of keeping the public in- 
 formed as to policies through the daily press.) In 
 Chicago the people know more about school affairs 
 now, have a keener sense of the inside of affairs by far 
 than they did six years ago. Bodies of public-spirited 
 citizens have been taken into the responsibility for 
 the welfare of the schools as they never were before 
 in the history of Chicago schools. All of this spread
 
 Making Over a City School System 189 
 
 of intelligence has been a part of the effort of Mrs. 
 Young in dealing with the educational problems of the 
 city. 
 
 If one of the marks of leadership is the power to 
 delegate responsibility to others and secure active and 
 intelligent cooperation, Mrs. Young was a leader of 
 high degree. She entrusted work to others and gave 
 them free rein in doing it. Her democratic principles 
 credited others with judgment and self-control, so, when 
 she had assigned some person with a task to perform, 
 she delegated responsibility for the finishing of that 
 task. Hers was always the teaching spirit that asked 
 for independence and loyalty in those with whom she 
 dealt, always placing greater emphasis upon the worth 
 of spirit shown in the performance of the work than 
 in the job itself. But her confidence in the integrity of 
 others often led her to make appointments to positions 
 that failed to live up to the trust she reposed in them. 
 She was not always fortunate, therefore, in the people 
 she chose to do particular tasks. A politician binds his 
 appointees to him personally, but Mrs. Young never 
 tied strings to the jobs she filled. It happened more 
 than once that she found herself beset by some of the 
 persons she might have had reason to expect loyalty 
 from in critical moments in the management of schools. 
 Mrs. Young herself would be the last person to hold 
 up to such a one his failure to live up to his obligations 
 either to her or to the place for which he was selected. 
 She hated the shirker and refused tolerance for work 
 half done. In some cases where she made sacrifices to 
 advance another to a post of prominence she found she 
 had to count on enmity and sometimes treachery.
 
 190 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 From the standpoint of current political practice 
 Mrs. Young's management of the superintendency 
 might be considered unique in its failure. Instead of 
 building up a machine from her friends that she could 
 rely upon, she even went to the other extreme in 
 appointing to places of responsibility men and women 
 who were opposed to her point of view and were often 
 her antagonists. All persons were treated on the same 
 level throughout her administration, so that at no time 
 could she count on an official clique in her undertakings. 
 Her own integrity and her own industry gave her con- 
 fidence in herself to meet and handle above board all 
 the problems of the office. 
 
 She failed even to provide herself with a secretary, 
 as her predecessors had done, until the last year of her 
 term of office, when the press of work became so great 
 that she was compelled to have help. Her failure to 
 build up a machine left her without that support needed 
 to keep in touch with all the forces at opposition with 
 the policy of an administration. The failure to provide 
 adequate assistants for the carrying out of her ideas 
 led directly to the attacks made upon her toward the 
 close of her term of office. What Mrs. Young accom- 
 plished as superintendent of schools she did almost 
 single-handed. No body of strong men and women 
 advised her on financial and educational matters, except 
 in friendly and disinterested ways. As pointed out by 
 one of her political enemies a year ago, the greatness 
 of Mrs. Young showed most clearly in her handling 
 the tremendous load of financial, political, and educa- 
 tional sides of the administration without a single 
 helper at a time when every ounce of energy of united
 
 Making Over a City School System 191 
 
 influences was against her. Doubtless with party organ- 
 ization she could have held her place of power with 
 greater ease and for a longer time, but at no time in her 
 life did Mrs. Young ever assume the role of dictator or 
 boss. Her strength of character lay in her own integ- 
 rity and her unwavering confidence in the integrity of 
 others, a confidence that was often taken advantage 
 of by those not deserving of it. 
 
 In the summer of 1914 Mrs. Young was sent as a 
 member of a commission to Europe to study education 
 and other conditions. Her investigations were con- 
 fined in the main to vocational training in the public 
 schools of England. On account of the outbreak of the 
 war during the summer the investigation was cut short 
 before reaching the Continent, except, briefly, Copen- 
 hagen, Christiania, and Stockholm. From the stand- 
 point of broadening the scope of vocational education 
 and suggestion for new lines, this report was very 
 valuable, though its influence has not been marked on 
 the schools of Chicago. 
 
 It is not alone in the United States that manufacturing and 
 commercial interests have in the last twenty years aroused deep 
 interest in industrial and vocational education. It is the sub- 
 ject that is uppermost in the minds of school boards and edu- 
 cators in England and Scotland. 
 
 For the day elementary schools and high schools 
 the report gives only woodwork for boys and domes- 
 tic economy for girls, though none of these offered 
 the technical training of Chicago high schools. More 
 attention was given to experimental physics and chem- 
 istry than in our schools. Some attention is given 
 in day and evening schools to technical training, but
 
 192 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 influences of employers have been against much exten- 
 sion of this work. It says: 
 
 To counteract conditions leading to dissipation of human life 
 and power, trade or continuation schools are increasing in 
 number and multiplying the facilities for city boys and girls to 
 enter the skilled industries. Courses are offered in subjects that 
 are close to the every day demands of society. The following 
 courses have not as yet been included in our trade or industrial 
 schools for boys between twelve and sixteen years of age: 
 bakery and confectionery; carriage and motor-body building; 
 hairdressing; professional cookery ; professional waiting; silver- 
 smithing, jewelry, and engraving; tailoring; training for metal 
 trades. In evening continuation schools for apprentices work 
 similar to that in our schools is found, but in addition the 
 following courses are given: brass finishers' work; tinsmiths' 
 work; mining; motor-car engineering; plaster work; uphol- 
 stery; wood carving; coach trimming; bread baking and con- 
 fectionery; tailors' work; tailoresses' work; flour millers' 
 work; hairdressers' work; art metal work; stone and marble 
 carving ; forestry ; ambulance ; sick nursing. 
 
 During her superintendency Mrs. Young found time 
 to write and lecture extensively. She gave several 
 addresses before the National Education Association, 
 among which her presidential address delivered at San 
 Francisco in 1911 is the most conspicuous. In this 
 paper on "Hypothesis in education," she contends that 
 since science had moved from the conception of a static 
 to a dynamic world, so education must move from 
 11 final determination of the ideal of education, which is 
 destructive of life," to " the large ideals of education, 
 with its many complexities, and the tentative conditions 
 for which we watch and through which we adjust our 
 ideals." Nowhere has anyone stated more clearly or 
 comprehensively than in this address the demands of 
 modern thought and conditions on education. In this
 
 Making Over a City School System 193 
 
 brief paper Mrs. Young shows that she had grown 
 both in adequacy of expression and grasp of the modern 
 point of view over some of her earlier writings. Her 
 utterances on education are those of the pragmatist. 
 In her statement of the evolution of life and reality 
 she says: 
 
 In classic and mediaeval times, nature was a world of perma- 
 nent things, the problem of science dealt with essences, and 
 even so late as the early part of the nineteenth century, heat was 
 supposed to be an imponderable substance, and light to consist 
 of luminous corpuscles. In the world of mind, the human race 
 was supposed to be a special, final creation, and the problems of 
 knowledge dealt with the fixed, the determined, the unchanging. 
 And so the problem of education dealt with the acquisition of 
 the formulations, the statements of great minds that had written 
 and spoken. . . . With the introduction and dissemination of 
 the hypothesis of evolution there is general appreciation, in 
 varying degrees, of the fact that theories of nature and knowl- 
 edge, that institutions of state and of social life, that methods 
 in industry and in commerce, that ideals of education and of a 
 worthy life, are all subject to change in a changing world ; in 
 brief, that finality both in the natural world and in the spiritual 
 world is death ; that change, adjustment, is life. ... I believe 
 that if we would rise above the idea of finality in things spiritual 
 we might have the term the educational imagination, with a 
 significance corresponding to that of the scientific imagination. 
 
 Probably the most important writing Mrs. Young 
 has ever done is found in her annual reports as superin- 
 tendent of schools. She spent a great deal of time in 
 constructing these reports, and her ideas and recom- 
 mendations form important landmarks in city school 
 reports. As educational documents they rank with those 
 of Wm. T. Harris when superintendent of St. Louis 
 many years ago. Each year she takes up a new phase 
 of the problem of administration and develops it in
 
 194 1Llla Flagg Young 
 
 such a way as to make it effective to teachers and pa- 
 trons of the schools. It is impossible to give in detail 
 the material written by her in these reports during her 
 six years as superintendent, but a brief analysis of each 
 one can be set forth. 
 
 For the year 1909-1910 Mrs. Young discussed ques- 
 tions of salary adjustment, revision of the course of 
 study, and flushing the rooms with fresh air regularly. 
 In the revision that had been made during the year 
 under her direction she had tried to get a balanced 
 amount of time for handwork. She says : 
 
 Every elementary school should be equipped with a manual- 
 training shop, a kitchen, and a sewing-room. The work of the 
 teachers in the classrooms and of the teachers of industrial arts 
 can never be integrated so long as the pupils are sent away from 
 the building to a distant school to be taught one phase of the 
 integration, while the teachers, busy in their separate buildings, 
 have no opportunity for conference and, at times, for cooperative 
 work in class instruction. 
 
 Manual training and household arts, promotion and 
 retardation, fresh air, physical education, athletics, 
 technical training for girls, training in morality, ade- 
 quate superintendence, and course of study are topics 
 developed by Mrs. Young in her reports for 1910 
 1911. One sentence under the head of "Superintend- 
 ence" reveals the belief of the writer in a democratic 
 form of management: "Schools are unified, methods 
 are harmonized, not through over-supervision by super- 
 intendent or principal, but by a truly democratic 
 supervision which would make conscious and effective 
 in every member of the education department the truth 
 that the public school exists to strengthen character 
 and efficiency in the individual, citizenship and activity
 
 Making Over a City School System 195 
 
 in the nation." She endeavored to make moral educa- 
 tion a live issue in the schools, and emphasizes the 
 value of environment of children. " In many of the 
 day schools the social atmosphere has become natural 
 and attractive to children, though there are yet schools 
 in which the old type of repression holds sway." 
 
 In 1911-1912 the superintendent discussed the uni- 
 fication of the school system of the city, kindergartens, 
 the course of study, the three R's, children with de- 
 fective speech, high-school course of study, maximum 
 membership of a school, use of the building during 
 school hours, and sex hygiene. She returns to the ques- 
 tion of integrating the academic and the industrial : 
 
 When our schools are so organized and equipped that the 
 industrial and academic work enlighten and strengthen each 
 other, the vague, the indefinite, will be almost an unknown 
 element in our class work. That they shall enlighten and 
 strengthen each other, the industrial equipment must be in 
 eVery school and the teachers of the industries must be recog- 
 nized cooperative members of the school's faculty in which they 
 teach not peripatetics, who are rarely, if ever, seen by the 
 academic teachers of the children whom they instruct. 
 
 She tried to bring about a closer relation between 
 the kindergarten and the work of the grades than had 
 existed before. Many of Mrs. Young's ideas as su- 
 perintendent were too advanced for the schools of the 
 city. The reconstruction of the three R's advocated by 
 her, while criticized rather severely at the time, has 
 been heralded as an "innovation" very recently in the 
 work of educational writers like that of Abraham Flex- 
 ner in the Modern School. Of arithmetic she says 
 that
 
 196 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 The value of rapid, abstract work with whole numbers and 
 fractions within the limits of the demands in the counting- 
 house, the shop, and the factory, seem not to be esteemed in 
 the American school. One who would clarify the American 
 teaching mind so that the difference would be appreciated be- 
 tween drilling drill and enlivening accuracy would deserve 
 lasting recognition. 
 
 In the English of the schools she found that teach- 
 ers were very generally teaching grammar as an exact 
 science rather than the living language. 
 
 If study of the native tongue does not lead to pleasure in test- 
 ing its possibilities in conveying ideas, the school, through adher- 
 ence to the study of a dead language, has undoubtedly failed 
 to make the young learner conscious of the richness of life in the 
 growing, changing, living language. Thus far, the teaching of 
 English grammar in the public schools of America has been of 
 slight value in developing an appreciation of shades of meaning 
 as expressed through a nice use of auxiliaries and prepositions. 
 
 In 1912-1913 Mrs. Young deals with such subjects 
 as modernizing and developing a school system, phys- 
 ical education, education for efficiency, textbooks, 
 teachers' councils, and salaries. Her effort to concen- 
 trate attention of pupil and teacher on a few subjects 
 during a semester is characteristic of her work. She 
 wished to cut all subjects studied at one time to five, 
 three of which should be "basic," a fourth to be phys- 
 ical education, and the fifth "cultural, recreational, oc- 
 cupational." She summarizes the progress of the year 
 by stating the fight over vocational education. One 
 party to the fight had extolled placing occupations in 
 the school and insisted that academic subjects would 
 take care of themselves, while the other party refused 
 to entertain any ideas except of the traditional subjects,
 
 Making Over a City School System 197 
 
 and rejoiced over the recrudescence of the three R's in 
 the schools. " Paradoxical as it may seem, the schools 
 permeated with the spirit of progress have responded 
 more quickly, more intelligently to the call for rejuve- 
 nation of the three R's than have the schools that arc 
 under the domination of the past." 
 
 Most significant in this report is Mrs. Young's posi- 
 tion on the value of organization of teachers: 
 
 The evolution of group consciousness in the members of an 
 educational body seven thousand strong brings to the surface 
 tendencies sometimes ideal, sometimes dangerous. Chief among 
 the latter is that of disintegration of the teaching forces into 
 units so independent of each other that they become what 
 Gompers terms " specialists in industry " and defines to be 
 " those who know but one part of a trade and absolutely 
 nothing of any other part of it." Chief among ideal tendencies 
 is that of appreciation of the value of the work undertaken by 
 the group. 
 
 Her insistence on democracy in school organization 
 was common throughout her reports. She says in her 
 report for 1913-1914 that 
 
 Out of the custom that gave principals and superintendents the 
 right to set standards there has evolved an ideal of administra- 
 tive power as that which embodies the right to set all standards 
 for everybody coming within its jurisdiction. This ideal was 
 admissible in the formative stage of a great governmental insti- 
 tution, before an analysis of democracy in that institution was 
 undertaken. That stage has been passed. We are now face to 
 face with the fact that a democracy whose school system lacks 
 confidence in the ability of the teachers to be active participants 
 in planning its aims and methods is a logical contradiction of 
 itself. A school principal talking about the desirability of con- 
 structing larger buildings, said "There should be forty-five 
 divisions in a school. That would mean forty-five teachers for 
 the principal to direct, just as each teacher has forty-five children 
 to teach." This was the reasoning of a member of the ruling
 
 198 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 class in an aristocracy. That teachers should be active in 
 planning the course of study or the improvement of relaxation 
 periods, was not written in the books of that principal; neither 
 was the power of initiative written in the categories of school 
 children's minds, as he would list them. 
 
 On the other hand, the long-accepted definition of the social 
 duties of teachers the development in their immature pupils 
 of a spirit contented and willing, regardless of their desires and 
 their intelligences has tended to create a feeling of unrest in 
 teachers when called upon to initiate, to construct educational 
 plans outside of their individual classrooms. Sometimes they, 
 like principals, superintendents, and board members, have 
 feared anarchy as a resultant of the individual ideals clashing 
 in the children upon transference from one teacher to another. 
 That is exactly what does result under conditions in which 
 teachers work out their individual preferences under regulation 
 by the administrative officials. It is not a good-natured patting 
 on the back, nor words of commendation given by a superior 
 being to an inferior being that will make for a social harmony 
 in a school or a system of schools. What must come, and is 
 coming rapidly in the more progressive systems, is the contri- 
 bution of the successful experience, the theories, and the doubts 
 of teachers, in frank, open discussion in councils organized for 
 freedom of thought and speech. Why talk about the public 
 school as an indispensable requisite of a democracy and then 
 conduct it as a prop of an aristocracy ? 
 
 The report issued during the last year of her super- 
 intendency shows Mrs. Young at her best from the 
 standpoint of a constructive thinker in education. In 
 her discussion of the course of study she throws over 
 the hackneyed arguments for enriching the work of the 
 upper grades and plunges into the heart of the needs 
 of children in the democracy as it exists now, over- 
 shadowed by the industrialism of the city. The difficulty 
 with the over-age boy and girl, the misfits in schools, 
 all lie in the fact that we are sending all children to 
 school and therefore need a diversified curriculum. In
 
 Making Over a City School System 199 
 
 discussing the failure of Latin and algebra in "the lost 
 effort to enrich the grammar-school course," she says: 
 
 This change is not so much a yielding to the preference for 
 modern over classical study as it is the recognition of the differ- 
 ence in the type of mind which today is seeking an education. 
 With the solution of the problem of education which America 
 is attempting the development of the endowment through 
 initiation and individual endeavor the difference in values of 
 subjects exists not so much in the traditions of the subject as in 
 its integral relations to all that is involved in the work which 
 this type or that type of mind is carrying on. Vocational work 
 will help to stimulate and strengthen the minds of children in 
 upper grades. 
 
 But she says also: 
 
 The vocational departments in high schools, or any portion of 
 them, should not be transferred to elementary schools. It is not 
 for limitation of children to commercial or trade training that 
 I plead; it is for fit preparation of our children before they 
 narrow, as in time they all must, to the routine demands of 
 trades and professions; it is for such an awakening of young 
 minds to the laws of nature, the needs and possibilities of 
 humanity, that in their future work they shall keep free from 
 the limitations of bread-earning, and spirit shall never fail to 
 catch glimpses of life and its meaning. 
 
 In recognition of the work she was doing for edu- 
 cation, the University of Illinois honored Mrs. Young 
 in 1910 with the degree of LL.D.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 C-H-I-C-A-G-O SPELLS OPPORTUNITY 
 
 "/^-H-I-C-A-G-O spells opportunity." With these 
 ^-^ words Mrs. Young closed her work as superin- 
 tendent of schools in Chicago. The sentiment expressed 
 in these words was not a mere passing emotion, nor a 
 sudden desire for trite saying. As stated in an editorial 
 column of a daily paper 
 
 Her final words of farewell are colored with the same good 
 sense, courage, and hopefulness that have marked her entire 
 life-work. Her message to the people had no resentful sting 
 in it for those who at times opposed her administration. It 
 contained none of the pessimistic sentiment which so often 
 clouds the outlook of old people and makes them believe that 
 the golden days all lie behind us. It had no tincture in it of 
 the bitter spirit of social unrest and rebellion which obstinately 
 refuses to see good and magnifies the evil aspects of the times. 
 Speaking of the schools, for instance, she is confident that the 
 school discipline and ideals are far better than they were fifty 
 years ago ; that the courses of study are now much better adapted 
 to qualifying children for actual life than they used to be; and 
 that an immense advance has been made in the schools in taking 
 care of the physical condition of the children a field wholly 
 neglected when she began to teach. In fine, this veteran of the 
 public schools is confident that Chicago's school system is steadily 
 improving in practical efficiency. Her notion of the possibilities 
 of the coming generation who will live and work in Chicago is 
 equally encouraging. She says " C-h-i-c-a-g-o spells opportu- 
 nity." It is a fine saying worthy of becoming a municipal 
 maxim. And it is a true saying. Mrs. Young's own career is 
 but one of innumerable examples going to show that a brave, 
 patient, and rightly aspiring spirit can always find an honorable 
 career in Chicago. 
 
 2OO
 
 C-h-i-c-a-g-o Spells Opportunity 201 
 
 Not only has Mrs. Young worked in Chicago for 
 more than half a century, not only has she found a 
 home within the limits of the city, but her professional 
 career and her very personality have been wrought 
 upon by her love of Chicago. Time has turned her 
 head gray in the service of the public schools of this 
 city. Whatever grade of work in the schools she under- 
 took has given her a new chance to serve the city she 
 loved. Her faithfulness to the schools and the interests 
 of the children of Chicago was not born of a mere 
 sense of duty held in some exalted mood, but based on 
 a real and abiding affection for the city itself and her 
 desire to serve its interests. When she suggested to the 
 board of education that rather than have salary sched- 
 ules cut in order to meet a deficit in finances she would 
 ask the teachers of the city to donate two weeks of 
 time to keep the schools open, she had no doubt that 
 such a request would meet with the teachers' approval. 
 And her basis for thinking so was her own devotion to 
 the welfare of the schools and her feeling that the 
 teachers she had been working with for a lifetime 
 would respond in the same spirit. 
 
 This love for Chicago has not been a matter of 
 emotional effusion and gush. It was based on an exact 
 knowledge of the life and growth of the city. From 
 the very first of her teaching to the close of her super- 
 intendency she had kept in close touch with every social 
 and civic movement of the time. When she first took 
 charge of a school as principal, as already pointed out, 
 she spent days and weeks studying the people and 
 homes and industries and surroundings of her district. 
 Every play place for children outside of the home was
 
 2O2 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 known to her, and so was every place that might offer 
 a lure for the youth of her neighborhood. Later on 
 she kept in the same close touch with the movements 
 of populations within the environs of the city, knew the 
 new districts added, the foreign peoples, and the needs 
 of each for accommodations in the schools. 
 
 No one appreciated more fully than she did the 
 efforts of the crude overgrown hulk of a city to keep 
 its clothes big enough to cover its growing body. When 
 it was charged by members of the board of education 
 that the demands for new school accommodations by 
 those who were attending only part time could be satis- 
 fied if all available rooms in buildings were used, Mrs. 
 Young pointed out that the empty buildings were in 
 districts from which people had moved because they 
 did not like the neighborhood, and it would therefore 
 be impossible to force them to send their children back 
 to those places. Encroachments of manufacturing and 
 business were driving people to seek new quarters, and 
 the schools would have to follow the people. "Until 
 the city dies and remains at a standstill, this movement 
 will go on, and we shall be compelled to meet it by 
 building new schools." Even though the city was grow- 
 ing all during her period of service at an almost incom- 
 prehensible rate, and even though this meant uncouth- 
 ness, still she found it a city where growth was in the 
 air and there was a genuine effort at all times to com- 
 pass the physical bounds set by the prairies and the lake. 
 
 This visible effort at growth offered to Mrs. Young 
 a great problem, a game of the mind and the energies. 
 She liked to see the struggles of wave after wave of 
 population for a stable hold on life in the city. What
 
 C-h-i-c-a-g-o Spells Opportunity 203 
 
 Miss Jane Addams has said about people in cities not 
 having learned to live together, Mrs. Young followed 
 day by day for fifty years and strove with all her might 
 to help them to learn. It was a struggle of social and 
 industrial forces to adjust themselves to the limits of 
 life in a new city, a city not much older than the life 
 of a generation, and this struggle typified her own 
 growing consciousness of the schools' share in bringing 
 order out of chaos. Probably no one element in the 
 education of the human mind has a greater place than 
 that of space: to cover a large area with the mind 
 means a real broadening of the mental horizon. The 
 same thing is true of a growing social group where all 
 is flux and undetermined. It was into this double kind 
 of problem that life threw Mrs. Young. Her mind 
 was ever alert for its solution. How could the schools 
 bring nearer to the people the lessons of regularity and 
 the message of service? Night after night she came 
 back to her room after the day of work and set herself 
 to find the answer. No one has ever devoted himself 
 with greater singleness of purpose to the solution of 
 this problem of wholesale education of people into a 
 new kind of social responsibility a problem in which 
 foreign-born children were no more conspicuous ele- 
 ments than native people coming to Chicago from rural 
 and smaller localities and struggling to adjust them- 
 selves to city life where standards of city life were in 
 the making. With an almost feverish energy Mrs. 
 Young devoted herself to the conversion of all such 
 diverse elements into citizens and neighbors, not only 
 of Chicago but of America at large. 
 
 Speed and energy in a great industrial center are
 
 204 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 matters of marvel. Probably these two forces in Chi- 
 cago had more influence in the formation of the ideals 
 of Mrs. Young than any other. Unhampered by the 
 traditions of an older and more formal civilization, 
 Chicago pushed to the limit of her strength processes 
 of competition and construction, often crude and in- 
 effective, but nevertheless always at work. Minds are 
 built out of the material on which they feed, and Chi- 
 cago's growth since the beginning of the Civil War 
 has been so stupendous that anyone keeping in active 
 touch with it must have felt himself expand with the 
 decades that have passed. Inventions and transporta- 
 tion have meant drains on the power of human minds. 
 Calls upon an institution like the school for ever-new 
 batches of human ore for the crucible of life have 
 searched the ingenuity of teachers and superintendents 
 at every moment. To a mind like that of Mrs. Young 
 such an atmosphere could act only as a spur to great 
 exertions. One can imagine her mind tingling with 
 energy as she looked upon the accomplishments of the 
 tremendous tasks of Chicago, the tasks of building a 
 city out of the mud banks of a great lake and putting 
 it in touch with all the streams of commerce passing 
 from one ocean to another every moment. In her 
 ability to keep pace with such a demand is shown the 
 measure of Mrs. Young's power. In her love for the 
 task she set herself is the measure of her singleness of 
 purpose and her success in the undertaking. 
 
 That life close at hand is of most worth to each one 
 was one of the fundamental tenets of Mrs. Young's 
 philosophy. In Chicago she found all that men and 
 women strive for the world over. Her writings and
 
 C-h-i-c-a-g-o Spells Opportunity 205 
 
 her addresses and her work all point to her belief in 
 the value of the immediately present experience as the 
 object of life. She never sought outside her work for 
 big, formal topics on which to write or speak, but found 
 her material always close at hand. The growth of 
 society, not in general terms, but in its human and 
 direct sense, she found in her own school and city. 
 Like the trained scientific worker, her mind probed into 
 the material before her, but continually reached out 
 for new tools and for every available idea to clear up 
 the problems she was trying to solve. Because of her 
 feeling of the value of the present, she always had time 
 to stop to consider each detail carefully. No matter 
 how busy she might be over administrative affairs, she 
 kept herself open to every applicant for attention and 
 listened to what each had to offer on the business at 
 hand. She exemplified in practice the saying of Carlyle 
 that "here, in this poor, miserable, hampered, despi- 
 cable actual, wherein thou even now standest, here or 
 nowhere is thy ideal ; work it out therefrom ; and work- 
 ing, live, be free." Often in conversation her face lights 
 suddenly at some passing remark of her interviewer 
 which has struck out some suggestion of solution to a 
 problem over which she has been brooding. 
 
 Chicago has meant so much to Mrs. Young, there- 
 fore, just because it has shown the way of life in its 
 intricate organization and demands. It has been so 
 sufficient that, no matter how tempting the opportunity 
 offered elsewhere, she has not been attracted from her 
 work. The attachment was more than merely working 
 among one's friends. It was really a belief in one's 
 own efforts rather than in place or opportunity. Doubt-
 
 2o6 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 less if Mrs. Young had been reared and had worked in 
 some other city in the world she would have had the 
 same regard for that place that she has had for Chicago 
 and its life. But it is difficult to separate her from the 
 surroundings in which she has worked. In fact, her 
 love for Chicago is peculiarly fitting to her own char- 
 acter and temperament. Wherever she has gone she 
 has carried the needs and the desires and shortcomings 
 of this big living embodiment of human strivings with 
 her. In Europe she saw new movements in terms of 
 the measuring-rod of Chicago practices and ideas. It 
 was to bring back impetus for her own schools that she 
 took trips. In other cities she found improvements for 
 Chicago in Tuskegee Institute she found posture and 
 carriage of students an antidote for slovenly habits of 
 high-school pupils of Chicago. Her life was centered 
 on bringing back to her home the best available every- 
 where. The report of her last trip to Europe is directly 
 bent on solving one of the hard problems of vocational 
 education as practiced in the schools of Chicago. Her 
 work in the University of Chicago never removed her 
 from an active participation in bettering the teaching 
 force and the school practice of the city. 
 
 During the past half-century, as already pointed out 
 in this work, there have been vast changes in operation, 
 transforming the forms of social forces in Chicago that 
 this western civilization alone could furnish. The 
 progress of these changes has made life for Mrs. Young 
 the most fascinating game. Individualism has run riot 
 in many forms in this period. Industrialism has raced 
 after immediate and material rewards. Its eagerness 
 for results has cheapened human life and at times
 
 C-h-i-c-a-g-o Spells Opportunity 207 
 
 placed property above men. Administration of human 
 interests has largely been in terms of economic stand- 
 ards, and each one has sought to place his own value 
 at the highest point in the market of life. In contrast 
 to this western individualism of Chicago the older 
 world of the East has ordered the life of each one 
 and rated him in terms of traditional standards. It has 
 reduced men and women to items in the business of the 
 state. Individuals have existed only to further the ends 
 set by the overlords of society. 
 
 Between these two ideals of society, the one of rank 
 individualism and the other of complete subjection of 
 each to the demands of a superior, the past half-century 
 has witnessed a third form of social organization in- 
 compatible with both. Mrs. Young has followed with 
 the keenest study this conflict of social forces in her 
 immediate community, and has perceived for many 
 years the growing germ of real social control, a control 
 based not on dictation of an outside governing class 
 nor on self-seeking individualism, but a control growing 
 out of the organization of the people themselves. In 
 all her work in Chicago she has admired the push and 
 initiative of the people. This initiative she has sought 
 to cultivate in the young. Her belief that Chicago 
 offered opportunity to the young was her faith in its 
 encouragement of initiative in each one. But she did 
 not stop with the encouragement of initiative. She has 
 persistently insisted that children must be taught their 
 responsibility to society. Each one must be made to 
 feel that he owes to his city and community the best he 
 has in him. Instead of merely seeking his own ends, 
 he must be made to feel that there are forces bigger
 
 2o8 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 than himself to which he owes allegiance. Chicago to 
 Mrs. Young meant the balance between these two 
 forces of initiative and responsibility in human affairs. 
 
 Even the politics and politicians of Chicago occupied 
 a fascinating position in the mind of Mrs. Young. In 
 her long experience with " influences " in school and 
 social affairs she came to regard the play of these forces 
 as a game. Moreover, she looked upon the political 
 situation as a part of the education of men and women 
 in self-control and self-government. The necessity for 
 misunderstandings and for self-seeking formed a part 
 of this scheme of things. Only when the vital inter- 
 ests of children were at stake did she rebel at the 
 unwarranted assumption of power of some faction or 
 person. Her interest was always a public one, and 
 never for private aggrandizement, and she found it 
 hard to reconcile herself to the predatory spirit in 
 others. During the last two years of her superintend- 
 ency, when she found political interests so strongly 
 intrenched that every move she made for the welfare 
 of the public school was blocked, her faith in our 
 system of government was sorely tried but never 
 broken. Only her long experience and her ultimate 
 faith in the triumph of self-government held her to the 
 end. The tragedy of her immolation and of her final 
 withdrawal from public life will never be known, but, 
 in spite of all her rebuffs at the hands of self-seeking 
 forces, her love for the welfare of Chicago and its 
 children kept her sane and single-minded throughout 
 the struggle. 
 
 Mrs. Young never became lost in the maze of mate- 
 rial growth and accomplishment, vast as such progress
 
 C-h-i-c-a-g-o Spells Opportunity 209 
 
 has been. It was not to external forces, nor size, nor 
 wealth that she gave her best energies and allegiance. 
 Back of her love for Chicago lies her love for the 
 human spirits of little children and the men and women 
 who so unreservedly gave themselves to helping these 
 children. The countless generations of young people 
 leaving the schools to enter the work of life year by 
 year stood for positive individuals to her, and she pro- 
 jected into them her own aspirations to conquer ignor- 
 ance and immorality. That she remembered the names 
 of her former students for many years afterwards was 
 not an accident of memory, but a part of her real 
 interest in keeping in touch with the work and lives of 
 those she had taken some part in forming. Her love 
 for Chicago thus had a large share of the personal 
 element in it at all times. It was not the houses and 
 streets and beauty of outlook that held her to this city, 
 but the feeling that kindred spirits were striving, and 
 it was her business to help them in their struggles. In 
 her love for Chicago there was always this yearning 
 of the mother-heart. She strove to make the way plain 
 for the children of Chicago. Human souls constituted 
 the Chicago that Mrs. Young loved, and all her work 
 in education was in answer to her love for them. 
 
 This spirit of love for the young of Chicago led her 
 to assume official positions in the schools. Office- 
 holding was to her never an end in itself merely 
 holding an attractive job and drawing a good salary 
 but was for what she could do for Chicago in that 
 position. In her readiness for the place to which she 
 was appointed, already pointed out, her preparation was 
 for the work she saw was needed to be done rather
 
 2io Ella Flagg Young 
 
 than for the position of power. Her custom of leaving 
 a position that had become restrictive was based on this 
 principle of leaving the place that cut off avenues of 
 service to the city. Opportunity to serve Chicago was 
 never separated from a deep sense of responsibility for 
 the welfare of its people. 
 
 Before Mrs. Young gave up her position as superin- 
 tendent of schools she presented her worldly goods to 
 the public. In comparison with the service of a life- 
 time which she has given, this act seems paltry. But 
 it is markedly characteristic of her thoughts for Chi- 
 cago that she should turn her books on education and 
 philosophy over to the public library, there to be used 
 by citizens and students. Her household goods she sent 
 to the Mary Thompson Hospital. The intrinsic worth 
 of the gift lies in the giving of her own personal and 
 cherished goods, gathered during many years as treas- 
 ures, to the public. That she should select public insti- 
 tutions to which to give her personal possessions is 
 evidence that her interests in the welfare of Chicago 
 were uppermost in her mind. 
 
 Her closing words to the newspapers when she left 
 the superintendency sum up Mrs. Young's love for the 
 children of Chicago and her inspiration in her years of 
 service. They might well apply to any city and any age : 
 
 I believe that every child should be happy in school. So we 
 have tried to substitute recreation for drill. We have tried to 
 correct bad physical conditions. We have tried to abolish severe 
 evening work. We have tried to recognize types of mind as a 
 mother does among her own children. We were losing the 
 majority of children at the fifth grade. By letting them do 
 things with their hands we have saved many of them. In order 
 that teachers may delight in awakening the spirits of children,
 
 C-h-i-c-a-g-o Spells Opportunity 2 1 1 
 
 they must themselves be awake. We have tried to free the 
 teachers. Some day the system will be such that the child and 
 teacher will go to school with ecstatic joy. At home in the 
 evening the child will talk about the things done during the day 
 and will talk with pride. I want to make the schools the great 
 instrument of democracy.
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 
 
 N an editorial on October 23, 1915, the Chicago 
 Herald said: 
 
 " Children and dogs know their friends," runs an old and 
 true saying. The children of Chicago, so far as it has been their 
 good fortune to come into any sort of personal contact with her, 
 know they are losing a friend indeed from among the ruling 
 powers of their daily lives, because after December 8 Mrs. Ella 
 Flagg Young will be no longer head of the public schools. 
 
 About a year ago a certain small boy came home with 
 shining eyes to tell about the lady whose acquaintance he had 
 made while waiting at a suburban station for a train. He is 
 a small boy, by no means humble of mind and not easily im- 
 pressed with anybody's greatness. But that five-minute inter- 
 view enrolled him as Mrs. Young's devoted admirer. 
 
 The incident excited curiosity and prompted enquiry. The 
 judgment was found to be uniform. While it isn't easy to 
 break through the reticence of childhood, this was found a 
 subject on which expression was prompt and decided. From 
 scores of children who had happened to meet her and she 
 seemed never to overlook a child anywhere near came the 
 verdict: "She's all right!" 
 
 From the day, over half a century before, when her 
 mother had advised her against entering upon teaching 
 as a profession, to the time when children instinctively 
 knew her for their friend, there had been a marvelous 
 transformation in character. The steps by which Mrs. 
 Young grew from a retiring girl to a big-souled woman 
 have already been pointed out. Likewise, the growth 
 from the obscure teacher to the educator with national 
 and international fame has been set out stage by stage. 
 But the qualities that have given her fame in her line 
 
 212
 
 Ella Flagg Young 213 
 
 of work, and for which she is recognized among her 
 countrymen, should be known. 
 
 How has she attained eminence among people? 
 Why is she pointed out among the crowd and kept in 
 the public eye? Certainly not by the mode adopted 
 by the headline-seeker after notoriety, for there is 
 nothing more distasteful to her than to be conspicuous, 
 and she craves to be let alone with her work. Many 
 guesses as to the secret of power of great men and 
 women leave us still in the dark. Intellectual suprem- 
 acy, social standing, political acumen, wealth, heritage, 
 democracy in spirit and practice, all have been offered 
 to explain the preeminence of people under various 
 circumstances. In the case of Mrs. Young one might 
 apply several of these descriptive terms with certainty 
 to the explanation of her character. Her intellectual 
 power is unquestioned, her foresight in administration 
 has been recognized as of high order, her courage and 
 self-possession, her outspoken manner of expressing 
 her convictions, her judgment in affairs, all belong in 
 the first rank. 
 
 Whatever the secret of Mrs. Young's greatness may 
 be, the fact that she is known through her efforts in 
 education the length and breadth of the country gives 
 evidence of her power. A summary of her activities 
 as they are known will show a wonderful versatility of 
 character and endeavor. As teacher, as administrator, 
 as writer, student, club-woman and citizen, democrat 
 in all these capacities she has made herself felt by the 
 age in which she has lived. She has had interests 
 enough to have earned the title of "educational 
 statesman."
 
 214 Ella Flagg Young . 
 
 As teacher Mrs. Young stands out conspicuously in 
 the annals of American education. She loves teaching. 
 Men and women hold her in cherished memory for 
 the thrill of strength and ambition she stirred within 
 them. She knows how to bring the latent power to 
 effective realization in whatever subject she undertakes, 
 whether with young or older people. To her students, 
 it always appears that they themselves are developing 
 the subject, so subtle is her power to draw forth their 
 thoughts and feelings. No one could miss the tonic 
 effects of her confidence. She speaks to the spirit and 
 the response is complete. In her later years her zeal 
 for teaching has increased rather than diminished, as 
 is so often the case, and she lamented that duties of 
 administration kept her from the direct work of the 
 classroom. Her judgment of the school is always from 
 the point of view of the health and happiness and 
 response of the pupils. No matter what the grade of 
 work, kindergarten or university, no matter what the 
 circumstances attending the work, her eye is always 
 clear to see the student's attitude toward life and its 
 problems. The marvel expressed at her power to size 
 up a schoolroom vanishes when one applies this simple 
 test of the freedom and happiness of children to the 
 teaching. 
 
 Next to that of teacher, Mrs. Young is known best 
 to the world as an administrator. Sufficient has been 
 said to make more than a reference to her position in 
 this respect unnecessary. One class of administrators 
 sees the big issues and principles, another holds the 
 minutiae of details.. Rare is the combination in one 
 person of both of these powers in great degree. Mrs,
 
 ffif 
 
 Photograph liy .larvis Weed 
 
 FLLA FLAGG YOC.XC, 
 \Yhcn Superintendent of Sclu
 
 Ella Flagg Young 215 
 
 Young was strong in both respects. She never lost the 
 large perspective of public education in American cities, 
 and at the same time she kept facts and figures at her 
 finger-tips in the most intricate matters. In the finances 
 of the Chicago schools she knew where every expendi- 
 ture within her department went. Her handling of 
 people was also masterful. Once she had assigned a 
 task to some person, he was held responsible for that 
 task. Her failures may be accredited to an over- 
 estimation of the reliability of an agent whom she had 
 selected, but the failure was always on the side of too 
 great rather than too little trust. In all her work as 
 an administrator she combined the power of a seer with 
 the adroitness of a politician. That she, a woman, was 
 allowed by the politicians of Chicago to hold a position 
 of such value as that of superintendent for six years 
 is the most searching test that can be applied to her 
 ability to deal with difficult situations. She found it 
 necessary many times to take "half a loaf" in improv- 
 ing the schools, but she never gave up a goal because 
 it happened temporarily to be submerged by immediate 
 difficulties. Her ideal of her office as an administrator 
 led to a complete sacrifice of personal affairs and of 
 all things except her ideals of what the office meant to 
 the public good. Those she stuck to under all circum- 
 stances, to the point of giving up the job rather than 
 compromise. In energy, in honesty, in fearlessness, in 
 large-mindedness and public-spiritedness, Mrs. Young 
 stands in the front ranks of great public servants of the 
 present generation. 
 
 Mrs. Young is better known for her work as a 
 teacher and administrator than as a writer. Since she
 
 216 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 has never been a person of many words, her production 
 is not voluminous, and consists of essays and public 
 addresses on educational subjects. In these essays and 
 addresses she is always the student, combining pains- 
 taking labor, profound and keen insight, and broad, 
 critical reading. It will be found on examination of 
 her work that she has considered in large measure the 
 most vital of the questions which have arisen in the 
 course of recent educational history problems of 
 school, theory and practice, management, of child- and 
 teacher-welfare. Very little of what Mrs. Young has 
 written has been put into an available form for general 
 readers. Most of her addresses and contributions are 
 found only in the proceedings of various associations 
 or in official reports, and the collection of her papers 
 into a single volume would be a distinct service to the 
 progress of educational theory and practice. 
 
 Mrs. Young's style is that of the scientist. Because 
 her grasp of her subject is detailed and definite, she 
 speaks in a more or less technical way. She says all 
 she has to tell in as few words as possible. On the 
 other hand, it must not be supposed that her writings 
 are formal or abstract because they are dealing with 
 technical, scientific material. There are no bare general- 
 izations nor formal declarations in her language. She 
 never "preaches." To her the subject she deals with 
 is as objective and plain as the experiment is to the 
 scientist, and her descriptions of the material have all 
 the definiteness and simplicity of scientific discussions. 
 
 When she speaks or writes Mrs. Young is not doing 
 so to take up time, to conceal her identity, or to hide 
 her position on matters at issue. She expresses always
 
 Ella Flagg Young 217 
 
 definite and deep convictions, though she is never par- 
 tisan or narrowly personal in what she says. Her 
 thinking is clear and to the point, and her language 
 says exactly what she thinks. As one who has known 
 her for many years says, " Mrs. Young has a very 
 clear, logical mind and a fine command of language. 
 The logical mind is the more important, for one can 
 have a good command of language without the clear 
 mental action, and give only words; one can talk, and 
 talk pleasantly, but give one's hearers nothing to carry 
 away." People always carry away something after 
 having listened to Mrs. Young or having read one of 
 her essays. One difficulty, however, often presents 
 itself to the average hearer or reader in getting her 
 meaning. Her method of stating what she has to say 
 is so simple and direct that she is likely to impress one 
 with the feeling that she is dealing with mere common- 
 place matters, and even careful readers may pass over 
 most significant material without noting its full value. 
 There is nothing of the spectacular or sensational and 
 dramatic, and people who expect this sort of thing are 
 usually disappointed in reading her essays or addresses. 
 Four stages in the history of Mrs. Young's writings 
 are well marked. The first covers the time before she 
 entered the University of Chicago as a teacher, and 
 includes several published addresses. The second 
 covers the years spent in the faculty of the University, 
 during which she wrote several essays and edited one 
 of the magazines of the school. The third extends 
 over her connection with the Chicago Normal School, 
 where she established and edited the Educational Bi- 
 Monthly. Finally, since becoming superintendent of
 
 2i8 Ella Flag g Young 
 
 schools she has written annual and special reports and 
 delivered frequent addresses. Each of these is a dis- 
 tinctive period in her literary work. 
 
 As a club-woman and advocate of the woman move- 
 ment Mrs. Young is well known in Chicago and 
 throughout the country. Her idea of equal rights for 
 men and women has been clear and unmistakable for 
 many years, though she has never been a "preacher" 
 of the cause. What she has undertaken to do was to 
 show the power of women in positions of public respon- 
 sibility, work that she considered more important than 
 talking in behalf of "votes for women." She said, in 
 commenting on her position in the suffrage movement, 
 " I have been too busy to talk about the equality of 
 men and women, but what I have done ought to help 
 secure for women recognition in civic and political 
 affairs." Wherever given opportunity to vote on any 
 public question she has exercised her prerogative. As 
 a member of an active and powerful woman's club she 
 has for years participated in movements for the im- 
 provement of civic affairs. Her position in this club 
 and her work in the schools of Chicago and of Illinois 
 have both been factors in the argument for suffrage. 
 The fact that women were already doing some of the 
 most responsible of public work was an incontestable 
 argument in behalf of the plea for votes. Mrs. Young 
 had been pointed out as the highest-salaried woman in 
 public affairs in the state of Illinois some years before 
 she became superintendent of schools, and in the latter 
 position she still held that place. In all her work for 
 votes, as well as 'for education, she felt herself merely 
 a representative of the great cause of public welfare.
 
 Ella Flagg Young 219 
 
 She merged herself into the public movements of which 
 she was a part, and never once undertook, through 
 writing or through speaking in public, to exalt herself 
 before the eyes of the country. What she did was 
 always directed toward some definite movement and 
 was not some side issue to bolster up her own interests 
 or bring herself into prominence. 
 
 It was thus as a citizen of the commonwealth that 
 Mrs. Young regarded her own work and her own 
 place in society. When the attack of the board of edu- 
 cation was made on the teachers' organizations, she 
 fought it on the ground that teachers were citizens of 
 the community and no one had the right to infringe 
 upon their standing as such. She jealously guarded her 
 own freedom in matters of public opinion and public 
 activity. That she never became merely an advocate 
 for votes for women was explained by the fact that she 
 saw a wider field of cooperation in public affairs where 
 men and women should be equal in the sense that sex 
 should not serve as a bar against any kind of public 
 work for which one is fitted. Being a citizen meant 
 neither one nor the other sex, but a human being with 
 the right to help in the direction of affairs of interest to 
 all. By years of patient endeavor she built up an im- 
 pregnable fortress for loyal citizenship in Illinois. Not 
 only, therefore, can she be appropriately called "an 
 educational statesman," but she deserves the title of 
 leading citizen. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that Mrs. Young is, 
 above all, a democrat. Without a clear understanding 
 of this democratic character one is not in a position to 
 understand her power as a leader. Democracy, of
 
 22O Ella Flagg Young 
 
 course, is a word to be conjured with. It undoubtedly 
 involves freedom to act. But, to Mrs. Young, freedom 
 to act is only an external manifestation of freedom of 
 intellect and spirit. That the democratic spirit of Chi- 
 cago was the principal element in her love for the city 
 has already been shown. Here she found it possible 
 to belong to a society that did not place an iron band 
 about her head. Each one is given his chance to feel 
 his own way to reality and stand on a foundation of his 
 own building. He is an essential part of the social 
 whole and finds every avenue open to him to do his 
 share of the work needed, yet he is free to determine 
 his share. It was in this freedom that Mrs. Young 
 placed her deepest faith. Education meant to her just 
 such a plan for giving freedom to the minds of children 
 that they might go forth fully aware of their power of 
 mind and responsibility in life. From democracy as 
 she found it in Chicago she projected a democracy of 
 the spirit. To her this spirit was never a tame thing, 
 but was full of fight and energy. She, herself, was a 
 lover of fighting, providing the fighting was the " give 
 and take " that develops the spirit. People have won- 
 dered that she was not embittered by the opposition she 
 met in the working out of the plans she had cherished 
 for years. As a matter of fact, she felt that democratic 
 principles demand such opposition and foster this possi- 
 bility for each to carry his ideas to the bar of public 
 necessity and there fight for the issues he considers 
 most essential to the well-being of the whole. Her 
 philosophy of life, therefore, kept her sane in the face 
 of most vicious attacks on her personal as well as 
 professional integrity.
 
 Ella Flagg Young 221 
 
 Back of all this wonderful wealth of objective accom- 
 r vishments as teacher, administrator, writer, citizen, 
 id as exponent of democracy, lies the fountain of 
 Mrs. Young's strength in her devotion to study. She 
 is always the student. Her mind is ever busy with 
 some immediate or remote question. She has kept in 
 touch with the latest books and ideas on literature and 
 science. She began as a young woman to read history 
 as a part of her weekly program, and that habit has 
 persisted. When the recent Balkan difficulties arose, 
 she said one day to a friend, "If you want to under- 
 stand the meaning of this trouble, read the new book 
 of Professor Bury." At the time of this utterance she 
 was in the midst of most trying difficulties in the admin- 
 istration of schools. She was able through her marked 
 power of concentration to see at a glance the mean- 
 ing of the written page. Her power to carry over for 
 a period some conversation or some piece of thought 
 was the acquisition of years of practice in this direction. 
 Months after a conversation or a request for informa- 
 tion, she would come back at one with, " I have not 
 forgotten your question. It seems to me," and then 
 would follow an exposition that showed that she had 
 brooded over the case during the interval. Besides 
 being a student of books and ideas, she was a student 
 of human nature. Her interpretation of people was 
 undoubtedly a feminine intuition, but was also the 
 result of most careful study and analysis of individuals. 
 Her continued insistence upon "types of mind" was 
 not an academic consideration, but was the result of 
 watching individuals and their mode of reacting. Above 
 all, Mrs. Young was a student of society. She applied
 
 222 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 all her powers of mind to understanding the group 
 with which she had to deal. In her classroom she was 
 constantly watching group-psychology, the effects of 
 people on each other, and the values set by the class 
 upon affairs. 
 
 Doubtless the effect on persons, be they individuals 
 or groups, measures in large degree the worth of a 
 man or woman. Mrs. Young has succeeded in impress- 
 ing people with her strength and has won respect for 
 her power. In her long career she has made enemies. 
 To many she has seemed hard and unsympathetic, a 
 person whose mind was made up and determined at any 
 cost. Often such an estimate has been made through 
 a misunderstanding of her motives or her manner; 
 often, of course, as the result of opposition to her 
 policies; often as an echo from past days when this 
 feeling was more common than in recent times. 
 
 For it is true that time has softened Mrs. Young 
 and has made her a more highly social person. There 
 was a time when she was diffident about attempting to 
 speak or act openly to others for whom she might feel 
 the keenest sympathy, merely because she found it hard 
 to show her feelings. The change observable in her 
 bearing is typical in her dress. All descriptions of her 
 as a young woman emphasize the severity of her dress. 
 No doubt styles affected by women have softened; no 
 doubt a girl desiring to succeed then in a business 
 career preferred a severer style. But neither of these 
 considerations is sufficient to explain the metamorphosis 
 that has taken place. Diffidence of manner has given 
 way to ease and cordiality, and the severe business 
 woman is now the well-dressed woman of the world.
 
 Ella Flagg Young 223 
 
 This estimate by the world, based on accomplish- 
 ments as teacher, administrator, and woman of affairs, 
 is incomplete without the view Mrs. Young holds of 
 herself and her career. Were one to ask her the secret 
 of what she has done, one gets the wholly unexpected 
 answer that her success is due to the help of others. 
 So keen is her sense of obligation that it is akin to 
 gratitude to others and to Chicago for the opportu- 
 nities she has had. Deepest of all, perhaps, lies her 
 regard for the help of her mother, a feeling almost of 
 reverence. The men and women who in the course of 
 her life have been closest to her and have helped her 
 are never forgotten, and to them she gives more credit 
 than the ordinary person does. Even politicians of 
 Chicago, she feels, have put her under obligation for 
 her chance to serve the city and accomplish her work. 
 To the women of the city and the country she feels a 
 deep debt of gratitude. More than once she has uttered 
 the words, " I'd like to do for the women of Chicago 
 what they have done for me in the past in giving me 
 my chance." From step to step in the history of her 
 work in various walks of life Mrs. Young has been 
 able to inspire friendship, and to such friends she has 
 turned in later years as the source of her power. 
 Nothing in her lies deeper than the sense of loyalty 
 which she shows to such persons. 
 
 In her private life Mrs. Young has had time, aside 
 from her busy professional activities, to surround her- 
 self with intimate friends who have stood bv her loyally 
 in all of her trials. To many people she has given the 
 impression of being masculine. Her strength of mind 
 and her tremendous executive capacity and indomitable
 
 224 Ella Flagg Young 
 
 courage have appeared to the observer more than 
 feminine qualities. To her friends, however, she has 
 always stood for the distinctively feminine. There is 
 almost a pathetic note of dependence upon others shown 
 in some of her characteristic moods. She is, in fact, 
 moody at times, and extremely sensitive about her own 
 private interests. All her life she has devoted every 
 ounce of her strength to her work. It is embarrassing 
 to her, therefore, to have people turn back to ask 
 about her personally. She eludes her interviewer and 
 turns his attention to the things she is interested in. 
 
 Her absorption in her work has on many occasions 
 led her to seem hard, and has alienated people from 
 her, when, as matter of fact, she has meant nothing 
 more than a desire to be let alone or to have others 
 see the problems as she sees them. This retiring and 
 sensitive spirit in matters where her private life is con- 
 cerned is one of her striking characteristics. When her 
 friends, during the last days of her superintendency, 
 dined her and praised her for what she had done, she 
 continually reiterated, " People will soon forget me. 
 My head is not being turned by what you say." Then 
 her sudden departure from the city, when she left the 
 office without a word to anyone as to her destination, 
 served again to mark her distaste for publicity. The 
 strange contradiction in her open public life and her 
 intense desire for privacy is explained in the habit of 
 a lifetime of devoting herself to the consideration of 
 her work and the interests of others. Her mind had 
 been trained to handle affairs, consequently she resents 
 any attempt to turn this faculty to the study of what 
 she considers petty personal matters. In most of such
 
 Ella Flagg Young 225 
 
 questions, however, her keen sense of humor prevented 
 her from becoming morose or suspicious. 
 
 Mrs. Young's nature is intensely religious. In a 
 mind like hers, religious beliefs are closely akin to 
 aesthetic feeling. The order and perfection of life, the 
 entirety of human endeavor, are really founded on a 
 faith in the rightness of the world of man. Her re- 
 ligion was closely akin, also, to her doctrine of democ- 
 racy. Unity of mankind is found in the independent 
 judgment of each in matters that concern all. One of 
 her beliefs was that of the sacredness of the individual's 
 right to judge and to live according to his judgments. 
 
 This brief review of the interests of Ella Flagg 
 Young must suffice to show the multiplicity of her 
 interests and, at the same time, the singleness of her 
 purpose. Seldom does one find a character of man or 
 woman that represents the devotion of a long life to 
 one end as in the case of Mrs. Young. From whatever 
 angle she has worked, she has seen ahead for the inter- 
 ests of the public schools. Her whole soul has been 
 wrapped up in the solution of the question of the edu- 
 cation of the young in Chicago and the nation. A 
 tremendous variety of human interests, a multiplicity 
 of lines of work and investigation, and a diversity of 
 experiences, but with all these interests and variations 
 the possession of a completely unified purpose and out- 
 look upon life which have never wavered in whatever 
 situation she found herself, characterize her life. Her 
 success is to be measured in terms of civic enlighten- 
 ment of the future, but her efforts of more than half a 
 century have a directness and a vision that point to 
 a great mind and a strong heart.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 ELLA FLAGG YOUNG'S WRITINGS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 That Mrs. Young has thought out and discussed some of the 
 most vital modern educational issues, the following bibliography 
 of her addresses and books will show. While the list is not a 
 long one and while the individual contributions are usually brief, 
 each one is packed with the thoughts and the struggles that go 
 to solve new problems. 
 
 Beginning in 1887, Mrs. Young has a long series of addresses 
 delivered before the National Education Association. These 
 are arranged in chronological order. In addition to these ad- 
 dresses she has contributed a great number of speeches and short 
 papers to other educational bodies, all of which have appeared 
 in newspapers and educational magazines, only a few of which 
 are listed here. 
 
 The most ambitious of Mrs. Young's writings consist of the 
 four monographs published in 1902 while she was in the Univer- 
 sity of Chicago. And, finally, her reports as superintendent of 
 schools form an important unit in her educational writings. 
 
 "How to Teach Parents to Discriminate Between Good and Bad 
 Teaching." Proceedings of National Education Association, 
 1887, pp. 245-249. 
 
 "Grading and Classification." Proceedings of National Educa- 
 tion Association, 1893, pp. 83-86. 
 
 "Literature in Elementary Schools." Proceedings of National 
 Education Association, 1896, pp. 111-117. 
 
 "Isolation in the School." Proceedings of National Education 
 Association, 1901, p. 363. 
 
 "Saving Time in Elementary and Secondary Education." Pro- 
 ceedings of National Education Association, 1903, pp. 322- 
 328. 
 
 "The Influence of the City Normal School or Training School." 
 Proceedings of National Education Association, 1906, pp. 
 121-124. 
 
 227
 
 228 Appendix 
 
 "The Educational Progress of Two Years." Proceedings of 
 National Education Association, 1907, pp. 383-405. 
 
 "Reciprocal Relations Between Subject-Matters in Secondary 
 Education." Educational Bi-Monthly, Vol. iii, p. 75. 
 
 "The School and the Practice of Ethics." Proceedings of Na- 
 tional Education Association, 1908, pp. 102-108. 
 
 "Hypothesis in Education." Proceedings of National Education 
 Association, 1911, pp. 87-93. 
 
 "Present Status of Education in America in Elementary 
 Schools." Proceedings of National Education Association, 
 1911, pp. 183-186. 
 
 "Vocational Training of Girls." Proceedings of National Edu- 
 cation Association, 1915, p. 125. 
 
 "Democracy and Education." Journal of Education, July 6, 
 1916. 
 
 "The Secular Free Schools." School and Society, July 15, 1916. 
 
 Ethics in the School. The University of Chicago Press. 1902. 
 
 Some Types of Modern Educational Theory. The University of 
 Chicago Press. 1902. 
 
 Scientific Method in Education. Decennial Publications of the 
 University of Chicago, Vol. iii. The University of Chicago 
 Press. 
 In the Proceedings of the Board of Education for the years 
 
 1910 to 1915, will be found the reports made by Mrs. Young 
 
 while Superintendent of Schools. 
 
 II 
 
 THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND COURSES OF STUDY 
 IN l86l AND IN 1916 
 
 The following exhibit makes clear the remarkable progress 
 made during the last half-century in the opportunities for edu- 
 cation provided by the Chicago schools. The extraordinary 
 development was one in which Mrs. Young shared, and which 
 she did much to initiate and develop. 
 
 In 1 86 1 Chicago had one high school; today she has twenty- 
 two. The total number of the different courses given in the 
 high schools today is twenty-one, whereas in 1861 there were
 
 Appendix 229 
 
 but three, and they but partially differentiated. In 1861 there 
 was no laboratory or shop work offered in any of the schools, 
 while now equipment represents an expenditure of many 
 thousands of dollars. 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL COURSES IN CHICAGO IN 1861 
 FOUR-YEAR COURSES TWO-YEAR COURSE 
 
 English or General. Normal Training Course. 
 
 Classical, differing from the 
 
 English by offering Latin in 
 
 the first two years. 
 
 Work in all courses was wholly academic and required. There 
 was no laboratory or shop work. 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL GENERAL COURSE IN 1861 
 
 FIRST YEAR 
 
 First Term. .. .Algebra, German or Latin, Descriptive Geog- 
 raphy. 
 
 Second Term. .Algebra, German or Latin, English Grammar. 
 
 Third Term. . .Arithmetic, German or Latin, Physical Geog- 
 raphy. 
 
 SECOND YEAR 
 
 First Term .... Algebra, German or Latin, Universal History. 
 Second Term. .Geometry, German or Latin, Universal History. 
 Third Term. . .Geometry, German or Latin, Universal History, 
 Botany. 
 
 THIRD YEAR 
 
 First Term. .. .Geometry, German or Latin or French, Phys- 
 iology, Rhetoric. 
 
 Second Term. .Trigonometry, German or Latin or French, 
 Natural Philosophy, English Literature. 
 
 Third Term. . .Mensuration, Navigation and Surveying, German 
 or Latin or French, Natural Philosophy, English Literature.
 
 230 Appendix 
 
 FOURTH YEAR 
 
 First Term. .. .Astronomy, German or Latin or French, Intel- 
 lectual Philosophy, Constitution of United States, Bookkeep- 
 ing. 
 
 Second Term . . Chemistry, German or Latin or French, Logic, 
 Political Economy. 
 
 Third Term ... Geology and Mineralogy, German or Latin or 
 French, Moral Science, Political Economy. 
 
 Note. A limited amount of English Literature was provided for 
 two terms. All science was taught from textbooks. The course was 
 well named " general " and was planned to offset the narrow classical 
 
 GRADED COURSE OF STUDY ADOPTED IN 1861 
 
 This was the first graded course in Illinois. It was much in 
 advance of the times and was largely merely a paper course, 
 expressing theory of a course rather than the actual practice. 
 
 Grades ten to one, beginning with the tenth or lowest 
 primary 
 
 Tenth grade, primary, required six months to complete: 
 Oral instruction, talk about objects. 
 Reading, charts. 
 
 Arithmetic, numerals I to 10, addition. 
 Drawing from tablets, printing. 
 Physical exercises. 
 
 Ninth Grade, required eight months to complete : 
 
 Oral instruction. 
 Reading, primer. 
 Arithmetic, numerals I to loo. 
 Drawing as above. 
 Physical exercises. 
 
 Eighth grade, required eight months to complete: 
 Oral instruction. 
 Reading, spelling. 
 Arithmetic to subtraction. 
 Drawing. 
 Physical exercises.
 
 Appendix 231 
 
 Seventh grade, required nine months to complete: 
 
 Oral instruction. 
 
 Reading, first reader finished. 
 
 Spelling. 
 
 Arithmetic, addition and subtraction. 
 
 Drawing. 
 
 Physical exercises. 
 
 Sixth grade, required nine months to complete : 
 
 Oral lessons. 
 
 Reading, including spelling, half of second reader. 
 
 Arithmetic, first book finished. 
 
 Script and drawing from tablets. 
 
 Physical exercises. 
 
 Fifth grade, required one year to complete: 
 
 Oral lessons, including some unorganized history and geog- 
 raphy. 
 
 Reading, spelling, second reader finished. 
 
 Arithmetic, Colburn's First Lessons; multiplication to 12x12; 
 division to 144-12. 
 
 Drawing. 
 
 Physical exercises. 
 
 Fourth grade, required one year to complete : 
 
 Oral lessons, mainly talks about physical facts and objects. 
 
 Reading, portions of third reader. 
 
 Spelling. 
 
 Arithmetic to long division. 
 
 Drawing. 
 
 Physical exercises. 
 
 Construction of sentences, beginning grammar. 
 
 Geography. 
 
 Third grade, required one year to complete: 
 
 Oral lessons, historical and physical facts. 
 
 Reading in third and fourth readers. 
 
 Colburn's Arithmetic. 
 
 Drawing. 
 
 Physical exercises. 
 
 Grammar. 
 
 Geography and history, map drawing.
 
 232 Appendix 
 
 Second grade, required one year to complete : 
 
 Oral lessons. 
 
 Reading, fourth reader finished. 
 
 Colburn's Arithmetic finished. 
 
 Grammar. 
 
 Geography, map drawing from memory. 
 
 History of United States. 
 First grade, required one year to complete: 
 
 Oral lessons, collection of general facts from astronomy to 
 manners and morals. 
 
 Reading, analysis of words. 
 
 Arithmetic reviewed. 
 
 Grammar, parsing and composition. 
 
 Geography. 
 
 History of United States finished. 
 Music once a week in all grades. 
 
 Note. Work in this outline was wholly academic. The names of 
 courses given here mean much less than they do now. For example, 
 drawing was very elementary and mechanical. Reading, too, was 
 confined entirely to the text and did not include a wide acquaintance 
 with literature as it does now. 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL COURSES IN CHICAGO SCHOOLS IN 
 
 1915-1916. 
 
 FOUR- YEAR COURSES TWO-YEAR COURSES 
 
 General course.* Accounting. 
 
 Science course. Shorthand. 
 
 Normal preparatory course. Mechanical drawing. 
 
 Commercial course. Designing. 
 
 Office preparatory course. Carpentry. 
 
 Technical course. Pattern making. 
 
 General trades course. Machine shop work. 
 
 Household arts course. Electricity. 
 
 Arts course. Household arts. 
 
 Architectural course. Printing. 
 
 Pharmacy, college preparatory. Horticulture. 
 
 * In addition to the above twenty-two courses, Chicago high schools 
 offer two-years' junior college courses, thus adding two years to the 
 regular four-year high school work ; courses for apprentices in many 
 lines of industry; prevocational courses, offered for children over age 
 for grades.
 
 Appendix 233' 
 
 GENERAL COURSE, 1915 
 REQUIRED 
 
 FIRST YEAR 
 
 First Semester Per. Cr. 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) 5 .5 
 
 Algebra 5 .5 
 
 Physiology 5 .5 
 
 Drawing 2 .1 
 
 Music 2 .1 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 26 2.3 
 Second Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) 5 .5 
 
 Algebra 5 .5 
 
 Physiography 5 .5 
 
 Drawing 2 .1 
 
 Music 2 .1 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 26 2.3 
 
 SECOND YEAR 
 
 First Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) 5 .5 
 
 Geometry or Ancient History 5 .5 
 
 Drawing 2 .1 
 
 Music 2 .1 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 21 1.8 
 Second Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) 5 .5 
 
 Geometry or Ancient History 5 .5 
 
 Drawing 2 .1 
 
 Music 2 .1 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 21 1.8
 
 234 Appendix 
 
 Pupils in the General Course must take at some time in their 
 course Algebra or Plane Geometry, and a year of History. 
 
 At the beginning of the third year the pupil may select either 
 of the two courses given below. 
 
 THIRD YEAR 
 
 (a) Language and History 
 
 First Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (b) or History 5 .5 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 17 1.6 
 
 Second Semester 
 
 English , 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) 5 -5 
 
 Foreign Language (b) or History 5 .5 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 17 1.6 
 
 (b) Science 
 
 First Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Choose two sciences or one science and math- 
 ematics, or one science and technical work 
 
 14 or 12 or 17 i.o 
 
 Physical Education _2 ^.i 
 
 21 or 19 or 24 1.6 
 
 Second Semester 
 
 English 5 -5 
 
 Choose two sciences or one science and math- 
 ematics, or one science and technical work 
 
 14 or 12 or 17 i.o 
 
 Physical Education , J2^ _ 
 
 21 or 19 or 24 1.6
 
 Appendix 235 
 
 FOURTH YEAR 
 
 (a) Language and History 
 First Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) or (b) 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (b) or (a) or History 
 
 and Civics 5 .5 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 17 1.6 
 Second Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (a) or (b) 5 .5 
 
 Foreign Language (b) or (a) or History 
 
 and Civics 5 .5 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 17 1.6 
 
 (b) Science* 
 First Semester 
 
 English 5 .5 
 
 Choose two sciences, or one science and 
 mathematics, or one science and technical 
 
 work 14, 12 or 17 i.o 
 
 Physical Education 2 .1 
 
 21 or 19 or 24 1.6 
 
 Choose two sciences, or one science and 
 
 mathematics, or one science and technical 
 
 work 14, 12 or 17 i.o 
 
 Physical Education 2 .T 
 
 16 or 14 or 19 i.i 
 
 In addition to the required studies given above, students must 
 complete satisfactorily enough optional studies to make seven- 
 teen credits at the close of their high school course. 
 
 * The elective work in this course is large. All science courses 
 include laboratory work.
 
 236 
 
 Appendix 
 
 ELEMENTARY COURSE FOR CHICAGO SCHOOLS FOR 
 
 1915-1916 
 
 ACADEMIC COURSE 
 
 SUBJECTS BY GRADES AND HALF-YEARS 
 
 FIRST GRADE 
 
 FIRST SEMESTER 
 
 English, Spelling 
 Song Singing 
 Art-Construction 
 Physical Education 
 
 English, Spelling 
 Song Singing 
 Art-Construction 
 Physical Education 
 English, Spelling 
 
 English, Spelling 
 Mathematics 
 Song Singing 
 Art-Construction 
 Physical Education 
 
 English, Spelling 
 Mathematics 
 Song Singing 
 Art-Construction 
 Teacher's Selection 
 
 English (a) 
 
 Spelling 
 Mathematics 
 Music 
 
 Art and Industrial Arts 
 Physical Education 
 
 SECOND SEMESTER 
 
 English, Spelling 
 Song Singing 
 Art-Construction 
 Physical Education 
 
 SECOND GRADE 
 
 Number through Art-Construc- 
 tion 
 
 Song Singing 
 Physical Education 
 Teacher's Selection 
 
 THIRD GRADE 
 
 English, Spelling 
 Mathematics 
 Song Singing 
 Physical Education 
 Teacher's Selection 
 
 FOURTH GRADE 
 
 English, Spelling 
 Mathematics 
 Song Singing 
 Oral Geography 
 Physical Education 
 
 FIFTH GRADE 
 
 English (b) 
 
 Spelling 
 Geography 
 Music 
 
 Physical Education 
 Teacher's Selection 
 
 (a) Emphasis upon oral and written composition. 
 
 (b) Emphasis on Literature.
 
 Appendix 
 
 237 
 
 SIXTH GRADE 
 
 English (a) 
 
 Spelling 
 Mathematics 
 Art and Industrial Arts 
 Boys' Woodwork 
 Girls' Cooking 
 Physical Education 
 Teacher's Selection 
 
 English (a) 
 
 Spelling 
 Geography 
 Penmanship 
 Music 
 
 Physical Education 
 Teacher's Selection 
 
 English (b) 
 Spelling 
 
 Oral Arithmetic 
 Geography 
 Music 
 Penmanship 
 
 SEVENTH GRADE 
 
 English (b) 
 
 Spelling 
 Mathematics 
 Art and Industrial Arts 
 Boys' Woodwork 
 Girls' Cooking 
 Penmanship 
 
 EIGHTH GRADE 
 
 English (a) 
 
 Spelling 
 
 History and Civics 
 Geography (Including Chicago 
 
 Course) 
 Music 
 Physical Education 
 
 English (b) 
 
 Spelling 
 
 History and Civics 
 Mathematics 
 Art and Industrial Arts 
 Boys' Woodwork 
 Girls' Sewing 
 Teacher's Selection 
 
 German optional in grammar grades. 
 
 Humaneness and Moral Training incorporated in English 
 and History. 
 
 A two-year kindergarten course precedes this elementary 
 course. 
 There is departmental work in the upper grades.
 
 238 Appendix 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL COURSE 
 FOR SIXTH, SEVENTH, AND EIGHTH GRADES IN SELECTED SCHOOLS 
 
 Classes taking this course will devote approximately two 
 hours a day to industrial work, two hours a day to academic 
 work and one hour a day to physical education, music, study, 
 recesses and general work. 
 
 The industrial work is under the supervision of the Depart- 
 ments of Manual Training and Household Arts. Details of 
 projects to be undertaken and plans of work will be determined 
 by the Supervisors of these Departments. 
 
 Art is transferred to the industrial work. 
 
 In the academic subjects the teachers are directed to follow 
 the outlines in the elementary course, making treatment in each 
 subject less detailed. They give special attention to penmanship 
 and the writing of business letters. In arithmetic, the problems 
 are connected closely with the work in the industrial subjects. 
 The commercial phases of geography and history are em- 
 phasized.
 
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