r UC-NRLF B 3 12b IT) O ID f O GIFT OF -V PICTURING SCHOOL ACTIVITIES REPUBLISHED BY COURTESY OF THE WESTERN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION AN INTERESTING RESUME OF MODERN SCHOOL ACTIVITIES, AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF ALAMEDA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA GEORGE W. FRICK SURf'-RiNTENDEN-r- XjF 'sCHOOLS ; , .ALAMEDA GOUNTY « .• • tv' ^ r.\^ ^ * .) ^ \ * * •> * Picturing School Activities By Archie Rice While directing the filming' of the educational, vocational, and recreational activities of the country schools of Alameda county, to produce four reels for daily free exhibition in the Palace of Education at the Panama Exposition, I was requested to direct also the taking of artistic photographic views of the best of the county's school buildings, from which types might be selected for the architectural exhibit in the Palace of Education. That experience in scurrying over the county in quest of live pictorial matter is not an adequate excuse, but it is a reason for my intruding upon pages ordinarily consecrated to more conventional discussion of pedagogical subjects. In the long ago, when my trousers were short, I began school and lingered briefly, with my trousers, in the old Lincoln school in Oakland. And then I betook myself and my trousers back into southern California and attended a country school with almost adult In- dians, and later a town school where my trousers were daily dusted with more than one thrashing administered by a robust teacher who sought vainly to suppress my whispering loquacity. Remembering what Oakland was in those early days and what the school discipHnary methods were in my boyhood, I have viewed the present school developments of Alameda county with keen interest. Recently I went round to the Lincoln school, my first visit there since the days when part of Oakland east of Lake Merritt was known as the town of Brooklyn, when the lake was all open to the estuary, when a dinky horsecar line ran lonesomely out to Berkeley and its scattered population of less than a thousand people in a forlorn pasture-land, when Oakland itself was a country town with a few horsecar lines and the squatty old Boggs Hotel its proudest architectural pile, when gypsy camps used to cluster near Lake Merritt bv the weeping willows and terrify small children, because parents were freshly alarmed then over the eastern abduction of little Charlie Ross, whose disappearance is still a deep mystery, although his wealthy parents spent a fortune upon the search. I found the Lincoln school grown to a modern brick building teeming with 800 chil- dren, 250 of them Chinese and probably the brightest assemblage of Oriental pupils any- where in America, children of wealthy local merchants and sons of Chinese families in the jld country sent hither to make swift development after a term or a year or so at the English language. Where I had had to fight my way after school, for no reason except that I was a new boy and a little country jake and because after-school fights were the custom of the times, I have found modern Alameda county no longer running to fist fights. Primitive brutal- ity has passed as a school habit in California. \\'hen I went to school with big Indians our chief game was a war of stones and clods from behind the doubtful shelter of improvised brush forts set up at close range. We ran out to the edge to peg the enemy as he emerged for more ammunition or for a shot at us. And we got plentifully bruised. Because I was little and awkward I got mine early and often, until my father, as head of the school board, abolished that form of innocent amusement and exercise. But I still have scalp scars as evidence of my participation in "Indian wars." The biggest scar was inflicted by the biggest Indian girl. She playfully slammed me off the porch rail, and I landed crown down upon a conical rock that was firmly established ten feet below and there to make an impression. When they got me inside and the blood mopped off the children were delighted, not because I was still alive, but because school was dismissed. During the recent tour of Alameda county, we filmed activities and scenes at nineteen schools, selecting those that had the features that would best make up the story of what these schools are doing in the newer fields of vocational training and in the more modern methods of diversified yard games and athletic pastimes. Alvisu School — $4,600 building, 3 V2 acre grounds, 55 pupils, 2 teachers — showing old school at right. Prior to eight years ago, when the present county superintendent, George W. Frick, came into office for what has developed into a third consecutive four-year term, there was not a domestic science course, a manual training shop or any school gardening in the coun- ty's schools. Those features have heen added during his regime, and of those innovations the movie-reels have made record. Of the still photographs taken for the architectural-prize contest among California's schools, there are half-tone reproductions illustrating these pages. The hope was to qual- ify with perhaps two, possibly three. Eight were finally admitted : both Piedmont schools, San Leandro, Hayward Union High School, Alviso, Centerville, a small one-room school just east of Niles, and Mission San Jose. Pictorially, the story of the county's school activities will play on the screen in approx- imately this geographical sequence with the time allotment roughly indicated: Albany. 150 seconds; Emeryville, 90 seconds; Piedmont's Bonita-avenue school, 250 seconds; Pied- mont's Lake-avenue school, 150 seconds; San Leandro, 420 seconds; Hayward Union Hiui Leandro School — .$70,000 building, 2 V^ acre grounds, 620 pupils (including 18 nationalities), li conununity of 4,400 people in famous cherry orchard district, with big cannery. teachers, in High School, 180 seconds ; Hayward Grammar School, 240 seconds ; Castro Valley, 100 sec- onds ; Valle Vista, 45 seconds ; Decoto, 180 seconds ; Alvarado, 160 seconds ; Alviso, 90 seconds ; Washington Union High School, 250 seconds ; Centerville Grammar School, 120 seconds ; Niles, 150 seconds ; Mission San Jose, 360 seconds ; Pleasanton, 250 seconds ; Liv- ermore Union High School, 190 seconds; Alay School, 45 seconds. The total will be just one hour. The range for these moving pictures is from the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay back seventy miles into the interior, with schools and scenic effects selected for their value in completing the composite picture. Chapters in a book are roughly of equal length, but they are not of uniform value. Some little incidents necessary to the whole story may be quite brief. That is why the schools get varying time on the screen. In many of the smaller places it cost more in time and travel to get fifty seconds of action than it did at other places to get three hundred. Those of you who do not visualize the geographical lay of Alameda county may better understand the district by a simple illustration. Open your right hand. Keep the fingers and the thumb close together. Now lay that May School — typical oiie-roum, oue-teaclier school, 2 1/2 acre grounds, cypress trees, in flat farming country seven miles eastward o Livermore. hand palm down on the table before you, the thumb toward you and the fingers pointing to the left. Now part the index finger slightly from the middle finger, keeping all the other digits in flat contact. Your index finger and thumb together form the San Francisco peninsula. The index finger-nail is the city of San Francisco, touching at its tip the Golden Gate and flanked on your side by the Pacific Ocean. The narrow open space between your index finger and your middle finger is the lower arm of San Francisco Bay. All the rest of your hand, from fingertips back to wrist-bone, is Alameda county. The finger-tips and the outside edge of your hand are the county's boundary limits touching Contra Costa covmty. The nail and back to the first joint of your finger is the bay-shore urban district of Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda. That comparatively small area has a city population of approximately 300,000. All the rest of your hand, back to and over the knuckles and on the the wrist, is the suburban and rural part of Alameda county, with 60,000 people. From the tip of your big' finger back to the wrist-bone is nearly seventy miles. And along" that rang"e of territory the movie-record will take the spectator during" an hour's run on the screen. From the first joint of your n"iiddle finger back to the base of it are in sequence the towns of San Leandro, San Lorenzo. Hayward, Alvarado, Decoto, Centerville, Niles, Mis- sion San Jose. The big knuckle is Mission Peak, a landmark on the low range that sepa- rates the bay-shore valleys from those out in the back country. Over in that valley next to your little finger and along back toward the wrist are Pleasanton and Livermore, and their surroimding regions of vineyards and grain-fields. Most of the rest of the county area is mountainous and deeply sculptured with outfiow creeks that drain down through regions as yet sparcely settled. Perhaps ninety-five per cent of the county's area is outside the three almost coalescing cities, and yet those three cities have practically five times as many people and pupils as all the rural area combined. Outside of these three cities are just fifty public school build- Valle \'ista School — on state highway between Ilayward and Niles, 2 acre grounds — There are 24 of these one-room, one-teacher schools in Alameda County. ings, including three that are union high sc'nools. Oakland alone has forty-seven main school buildings. Nineteen of them are new and modern structures erected with four city bond issues, approximating nearly $4,000,000, voted during the past decade l)y the citizenry for new schools and augmented play- grounds. A commission of experts, sitting twice a week for two months and without pay, was secured by the Oakland Board of Education three years ago to plan a general scheme of buildings and then recommend a supervising architect who would confer, with various California architects and finally direct the completion of the plans. The new buildings have been constructed with a view to possible future enlargement from original architectural units, so that any or all may be added to without marring the harmony of the design. Playground areas have been generously provided for present and for future needs. Most of the downtown schools occupy a city block or more. Some of the newer build- ings have even larger areas. The Lockwood school is upon a tract of eighteen acres, or 6 about five city blocks. Tbe remarkable new technical high school, which cost more than half a million dollars and has seventy teachers and fifteen hundred pupils, stands wide- spread and low and imposingly on an area of eight acres, which is more than two whole blocks in an average city. 5 In the new buildings simplex windows are used, so that by tilting them at the medial horizontal axis each room may be quickly converted into practically an open-air auditor- ium. Assembly hall, stereopticon-room, neighloorhood clubroom. library, kindergarten, nurse's room with bath, toilet rooms, teachers' rest room, teachers' lunch room, pupils' lunch room, boiler and fan rooms, with adjustable ventilation and automatically regulated temperature for each class room — such are the common innovations in most of the new buildings. In all the new buildings there are domestic science rooms and manual training- rooms. But it is onlv of the outside districts that this article has to deal, onlv with those schools that were either filmed or photographed, or both. Most visitors are somewhat familiar with the appearances and customs of the larger city schools. But very few have oppor- Centerville School — $18,000 building, 3 acre grounds, pine trees. 207 pupils, 6 teachers, in small town center of rich agricultural valley. tunity for a general survey of the remoter places. Some of the newer schools are so new that their pictures will now appear as novelties even to old residents who are familiar with much of the county's area. For those of you who do not know much of the technique of the movie game it may be pertinent to explain that there are sixteen snapshot pictures to the second, and those sixteen pictures make one foot of reel. Each little picture is no larger than a postage stamp, and it must be clear and perfect in order to permit the gigantic enlargment that it gets when intense rays of light are sent through it and focused on a dense white screen. By the uniform rapidity of projecting the little pictures, at the rate of sixteen a second, the eye is deceived into seeing what appears as a continuously moving picture, whereas there are actual little cut-olT pauses between the pictures. When the pictures are taken more slowly, say eight a second, and then are given the standard projecting speed of sixteen a second, movement is greatly accelerated, and auto- mobiles and humans can be made to do wonderful hustling over the landscape. But no tricks are attempted with Alameda school children, except that slow speed was used in an insufficiently illuminated assembly room at Hay ward. The resulting projec- tion of that picture makes some of the study-hall students do little quick, nervous move- Hayward Union High School — $65,000 Imilding on great 13 acre athletic field grounds that cost $15',000, 156 pupils, 8 teachers in a community of 4,400 people. ments like children that have had buckwheat cakes for breakfast and are wearing heavy flannels in warm weather. On a grassy level space behind the Hayward Union High School we assembled nearly nine luindred grammar school pupils and filmed them from the roof top, shooting down into a wildly animated HAYWARD formed of what looked like a juvenile army when it came there in long procession from the most populous country school in the county. What of the personal products of the schools of the hinterland outside of the east-bay cities? Do you recall the name William A. Langdon, district attorney of San Francisco, dur- ing the prosecution of the notorious graft cases after the great fire? He was the first pres- ident of California's newlv organized State Board of Education. For years before his en- Pleasanton School — $35,000 building, 2Vz acre grounds, eucalyptus trees, 331 pupils (including two lower high school iilasscs), n teachers, in community of 3,300 people, with noted race-course, horse farm, and county's agricultural fair buildings off in front of school. 8 try into the legal profession he was principal of the grammar school at San Leandro. Percy Long, now and for several elective terms, city attorney of San Francisco, is a graduate of the Hayward grammar school. Doctor Daniel Crosby of Oakland graduated from the Centerville grammar school and afterward taught school ; and his brother, Peter Crosby, an Oakland lawyer, went through that same scholastic and pedagogical training. Superior Judge W. H. Donahue of Alameda county, graduated from one of the county's schools, later taught school, and was district attorney. Louis Decoto, a South African mining engineer and graduate of the University of California, and his brother, Ezra Decoto, now assistant district attorney of Alameda county and a well-known alumnus of the the University of California, are brothers who received their grammar-school training at Decoto, a town named after their father. The late James Whipple, University of California football captain, and Alaskan mining engineer, was a graduate of the Washington L^nion High School at Centerville. Paul Downing, one of the foremost hydro-electric engineers in the world, and his brother, Claude Downing, a banker of Berkeley, got their pre-college schooling in Pleasan- ton. Then they entered Stanford with its pioneer class, Paul playing on the varsity nine and four years on the varsity football team in four different positions, and the last year as Ward School — one-teacher school in orchards, mile eastward of Xiles, 1 acre grounds, English front avenue. walnut trees along victorious captain, and Claud playing on the first football team and on the first varsity baseball team. J. W. McClymonds, who was city superintendent of schools in Oakland for twenty- four years, was, prior to that service, principal for seven years of the San Leandro school and was followed there by George W. Frick, now county superintendent of schools. San Leandro proved the stepping-stone by which McClymonds moved up to the city superin- tendency in Oakland, by which Frick advanced to the county superintendency, by which William H. Langdon went to the district attorneyship of San Francisco. Other educational leaders in the back country have moved up into city positions : C. F. Gulick, principal of Oakland's Lafayette school, came from Hayward grammar school ; and so did William Greenwell, principal of the Lincoln school in Oakland ; and H. C. Petry of the Grant school in Oakland. George Edgar, principal of the Franklin school in Oakland, moved in from Niles. W. D. Spencer, principal of the Fruitvale school, moved cityward after experience gained at Mount Eden ; and Frank M. Carr, assistant county superinten- dent of schools, came on into the Oakland headquarters ofifice eight years ago from ex- perience at Mount Eden. P. M. Fisher, principal of the great new technical high school, was county superin- 9 Xili's School — $20,000 liuilding:, 2 1/^ acre grounds, 220 pupils, 6 teachers, surrounded by apricot orchards and facing picturesque hill, with moving-picture plant of Essanay Company 100 yards away. tendent of schools and way back in 1ST 9 taught in the httle country school at Sheridan. They develop themselves out in that back country, and then come on into the big cities to greater leadership. Unless you can conjure memory to come and sit beside you and repicture some of the early scenes of Alameda county and its communities as they were you can little realize how great has been the growth and development of that section stretching back from the east shore of San Francisco bay. Twenty-four years ago when Stanford University first opened and 559 of us went there as strangers to a new institution and to one another, the town of Berkeley was not so large as Hayward is today, and the University of California, although then more than twenty :r '^.~'::<^ i Hayward Grammar School — 2 Vi acre grounds, date palm trees, 800 pupils, 19 teachers, in community of 4,400 people in orchard section, with large fruit packing industr.v — Principal of this school is highest paid of county's country teachers, $2,700 a year. 10 years old. had only about 450 students. Today Berkeley is a beautiful residential com- munity of 56,000 people — some claim G5.00() And the I'niversity of California numbers about G.OOO students. What has happened to Berkeley in amazing growth of population and educational development is typical of all Alameda county, which stands today second only to Lo^ Angeles as the foremost educational county among the fifty-eight in Cali- fornia. New buildings, better facilities, larger grounds, more instruction for practical useful- ness in life, improved methods, greater diversity of interests to arouse the juvenile mintl that is groping for something that makes close appeal, more sanitation, raised standards of scholarship and of teaching indicate the trend of the evolution of this people. Wider participation in playground games by both sexes, a gently developing under- standing of the ethics of good sportsmanship that scorns to cheat and does not brawl or seek to mob the umpire, that is ashamed of the mucker in its midst — these are some of the tendencies that are making for a better citizenry than the old conditions would naturally produce. [ Liveimore Caioii Higli School — grounds entire city block, pepper anJ locust trees, 92 pupils, 6 teachers, in community of 3,850 people — Oldest of county's union high school districts — near town one of largest fuse factories in America and in town two well known nerve and drink sanatoriums. At Albany, where 23 per cent of the population are school children — the county aver- age being about 12.5 per cent — we filmed big girls coming in rapid procession over a run- ning high jump. At Emeryville a buxom girl daringly slid down the toboggan, standing up. At Decoto and at San Leandro the movie camera got girls swatting the ball man- fashion and lining it out. A new era has arrived when girls can do these things, and play tennis and do grace- producing folk dances as part of the physical freedom of their school development. At Emeryville, at Decoto, at Mission San Jose, and way out at the little j\Iay school we filmed children working in their school gardens. At Hayward and at Centerville we put domestic science and cookery into the movie record. And at Alvarado and Mission San Jose and Livermore sewing and embroidery and dressmaking-. 11 At Piedmont and San Leandro and Alvarado and Centerville boys were shown doing- practical carpentry. At Pleasanto'n Mrs. Phoebe Hearst welcomed some thirty note-taking pupils to her famous hacienda on the hillside of her valley-viewing country estate, and there they were filmed in scenes, in some of which the hostess herself appeared, she of western philan- thropy and for nearly a score of years now the one woman member of the board of re- gents of the University of California. Thus to portray public schools as a movies theme is somewhat of a novelty. And to Alameda county, under George W. Prick's superintendency, perhaps belongs the credit of adapting this method of driving home the story so that spectators at the two great Cali- fornia expositions may learn of it and so that also the National Education Association may view it during the national convention of educators in August. To direct professional or paid actors for movie action is a simple matter of issuing explicit orders and having them obeyed constructively. But to work with hundreds ot exuberant or only partially attentive children, some of whom are inclined to pose rigidly and self-consciously, is a different ]>rohlem. Piedmont's Lake Avenue School -$28,000 building, 3 acre grounds, 150 pupils, 5 teachers, in hillside home com- munity of 2,375 people. For instance, preparation of the children of the Piedmont school for the cover de- sign, "A California Tower of Jewels," was no small task. I went to that school at 8 :30 in the morning, consulted with the four men who were about to construct the necessary scaffolding, telling them what I had in mind. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon I was back with a still-life photographer, for then the structure was ready. By 2 :30 o'clock I began arranging the 300 children, the littlest first and down in front. But little folk wiggle and tire, and even these charming Piedmont children would not all stay ])ut. By 4 o'clock the thing was ready, and the photographer made three rapid exposures. The preparations took an hour and a half for that grouping, working rapidly, but the actual picture was made in two-fifths of a second. I had to be careful and sure that no accident might mar the occasion. Some twenty years at newspaper and magazine writing, with an eye ever alert for the strange and the picturesque and the beautiful, and a personal experience at talking be- fore nearly a hundred school, college, and convent audiences in California are back of the assertion I now make : That Piedmont group is uniformly the finest looking lot of child- ren I have ever seen together anywhere. Particularly were there lovely little girls, and as sweet as they were good to look upon. ]2 Piedmont is a hillside paradise of beautiful homes, made lovely with gardens and set for a commanding- view down over Oakland and toward the Golden Gate and the fire- christened city off over there that is piled and ranked upon its forty hills, the least of which is higher than any hill in Rome or Athens. They told me that the supervising principal of those two Piedmont schools is the high- est paid woman teacher in the county sc1k)o1s. She is Miss Clara Crumpton, and the pay is $1,800 a year. The highest paid man teacher in the outer districts is the principal of the Hayward grammar school. He is E. N. Mabrey, a Stanford graduate of a dozen years agone, and his pay is $2,700 a year. Under his leadership that school has assembled a worthy col- lection of 180 large framed pictures and 200 varieties of stuffed birds. The Hayward grammar school is a model of organization and thorough preparation. It is organized on the departmental plan. i The average yearly salaries throughout the county are : Men teachers, in high school work, $1,753.40, in grammar school work, $1,583.90 ; women teachers, in high schools, $1,- 394.35. in grammar schools, $1,082.19. These figures imply ten months of actual instruc- Centerville's Washington Union High School — 6 acre grounds with athletic fields, English walnut trees, olives, oranges, palms, 117 pupils, 7 teachers. tion each year, which makes the monthly salary really one-tenth of the figures given; and that is a high average, measured against teachers' pay elsewhere. The three union high school principals, far from the big cities, get these salaries : At Hayward and Centerville, $2,225 a year, and at Livermore, $2,000 a year. There are twenty-four one-teacher schools out in the country districts, and their teachers are paid between $60 and $110 a month. Only three teachers receive so little as $60 a month. Five get $70. Three get $75. Six get $80. Two get $90. One gets $100. One gets $110 a month. But where they teach their cost of board and lodging is less than in the towns and incidental living expenses are relatively small. A major part of the salary can be saved. It is not the bigness of your salary that signifies good pay, but the possible net sur- plus that can be saved each month, after deducting the necessary expenses of living the expected part in your chosen environment. 13 «asBS3aK.£u^3K^MB«B2- Piedmont's Bonita Avenue School — $32,000 building, 2 acre grounds, cypress trees, 260 pupils, 12 teachers, in beau- tiful residential community of 2,375 people. After the one-teacher schools there are five with two teachers, four with three, two with four, one with live, three with six (Decoto, Centerville. Xiles), two with seven (Al- bany and Emeryville), one with eight (San Lorenzo), one with nine (Piedmont's Bonita- avenue), two with eleven (Livermore and Pleasanton), one with eighteen (San Leandro), one with nineteen (Hayward). Livermore and Pleasanton, in the larg-e Livermore A'alley in the eastern part of the county, are schools of excellent type, the former under the able supervision of D. E. Martin for years, and the latter well supervised by Wm. C. Waibel. Among the other able principals who, together with the co-operation of competent grade teachers, and the teachers of the ungraded schools, complete a system of unexcelled rural school work, may l)e mentioned Messrs Lacy of Emeryville : Runckle of Decoto ; Mission San Jose School — $12,000 building, 4 V^ acre grounds, costing $4,000, 115 pupils, 3 teachers, in historic mission community. 14 Diaz of Centerville : Lazarus of Warm Spring-s ; Davies of Mission San Jose ; McCarty of Alvarado ; Lawson of San Lorenzo; \'oorhie of Niles ; and Bunker of Newark (where a fine large new buildin;;!; is now being constructed). The CaHfornia public school plan include a County Board of Education, assisting the County Superintendent in the supervision of the county schools. In Alameda county the Board consists of representative educational people, and is composed of President C. L. Biedenbach, P. M. Fisher, Wm. McDonald, Miss Genevieve McKeever and Geo. W. Frick, county superintendent of schools (ex-ofificio). Throughout Alameda county there are about 1,280 teachers in the public schools and -14,5t)0 pupils, 5,573 of them in the high schools. In the one-room schools the range of attendance is from fifty-one down to as low as six and seven. The average is twenty-two pupils for the one-room district schools, but there are six that have fewer than a dozen children in attendance. Way out on the east- ern edge of the county, where the great billowing hills are bare and uninviting and the population is made up of isolated farm homes, is the Mountain House School, with seven ])upils. San Lorenzo School — in 2% acre grounds in Portugues gardening and orchard district, 295 pupils, 8 teachers. In Alameda county high school attendance averages daily 83. .4 per cent of the total enrollment. In the grammar schools the daily attendance averages 78. .2 per cent of the enrollment. It costs the county $79.43 a year for the education of each high school pupil and $38.16 a year for each grammar school pupil. Fifty per cent of the country teachers of Alameda county are graduates of state nor- mal schools, the great majority having been trained at San Jose, with San Francisco nor- mal a fair second. Nineteen per cent are university graduates, approximately nine-tenths of them having been trained at the Cniversity of California. Twenty per cent hold life diplomas as evidence of veteran and satisfactory service in the teaching profession. The remaining eleven per cent represent those high school graduates or those of other special training who have taken the county examinations and received certificates in various parts of California or have been accepted on similar credentials from other states. There are twenty-five men out in that great stretch of country; twelve widows, and 132 unmarried women, engaged in the teaching game. Every year a great new crop of young teachers blossom from the five normal schools of California, from the two big" universities and from like institutions in other states. And they come wanting" positions, seeking- the places where life is most agreeable and the pay good. For such reasons Alameda county can command high qualifications in its chosen teachers. Because Alameda county is so close to the western metropolis and the profits of its marts and commerce and because it possesses, at Berkeley, the University of California it is naturally advanced in educational ideas and in school equipment. Its people are close to examples of what good schools should be, and the productivity of the soil and its nearness to a ready market make attainmen financially possible. All able-bodied men are $2-a-day men from the neck down.. But what they have in intelligence, in mental grasp, what there is to them from the neck up determines their added earning power in the world's worth-while work. And each generation is coming more and more to realize that men must be educated to keep the pace. "Poor folks have poor ways," and people that are poor in mind and mental development through lack of schooling must do the crude work of the world and take its smallest intermittent wage. Alvarado School — 3 acre grounds, fan palm trees and weeping willows, 125 pupils, 3 teachers, in small community with large beet-sugar factory and Chinatown section. It was a pleasure to me to note what is being done at San Leandro. There is a great school of 620 day ]nipils and between 60 and 120 day-working night pupils, vary- ing with the season and the chances for work. Eighteen different nationalities are repre- sented in that school community of young citizens in the making. That school has a large band that plays when school begins in the morning and again at noon. It has an efficient orchestra of girls and boys who play for the exodus at recess time. It has a school savings bank, in which the aggregate of little deposits the day of my visit was something more than sixteen dollars. It has an employment bureau, which then had more than forty prospective jobs listed for the boys of the school. It has an emergency hospital conducted by the pupils ; woodworking shop and manual training ; do- mestic science, cooking and sewing; folk dancing for the development of feminine grace- fulness ; general debating in which scores participate. It has an annual flower show of California wild blossoms. We filmed that, too. There were 444 varieties from thirteen 16 counties, and scores of visitors came from afar to view the exhibition. It has an annual exhibit of all the things that the pupils have made or grown or developed at their homes — carpentry, needlework, pets of many kinds, flowers and vegetables. And it is only a grammar school and a sort of miniature melting pot of the various races, smelting out the metals that shall make substantial citizens who can do useful things and be self-reliant in the processes of learning how. Of course, there must be some resourceful and constructive mind back of it all. It is there behind the smiling, quiet personality of a youngish, mild-eyed man with a degree from the University of California. Guy Smith is the man that is doing all that work for constructive citizenship there at San Leandro. His pay is $"3,000 a year. I would guess that such influence is worth five times that to the community, because every one has some- thing to do, to interest him or her, and even the recess periods are filled with such di- versified recreation that no children stand about moping or half dormant. Remember what happened to jMcClymonds and Frick and Langdon, who held the prin- cipalship at San Leandro. They came up. And Guy Smith is a man that has yeast in his cosmos, and quiet energy to help raise the youth of the community with him. Thus far onlv twelve of the fiftv-eight counties of California have kindergarten de- partments in their public-school systems, and Alameda county is one of the twelve. The others are Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Tehama, Ventura. Seven are in the warm south- land, three in the great interior valleys, two on the edge of San Francisco Bay. Roughly that list embodies the present public-school leadership of California, as measured by build- ings and methods of teaching. In the country schools of Alameda county there are 5,939 pupils, and practically 55 per cent of them are boys and only 45 per cent are girls. There are 541 more boys than girls in those schools. The forty-seven grade schools have 94 per cent of the pupils and the three union high schools have 6 per cent. But while the boys predominate in the grade schools in the ratio of 6 to 5, in the high schools the girls are in the majority, in the ratio of nearly 5 to 4. At present fifteen of every 200 girl pupils are to be found in high school, but only ten boys in every 200. To express it concretely, there are seventy country boys that might be in high school, but are not. Why? To answer that is to solve part of the problems of ofifering interesting training for direct practical usefulness in life. The Schools of Oakland From the standpoint of educational opportunity, Oakland is very fortunately situated. The city contains many churches and private schools of recognized merit, of both prepar- atory and college grade, and Mills College, the most widely known institution in the West, devoted exclusively to the higher education of young women. It is within a few minutes' ride from the University of California, the largest and one of the best equipped State uni- versities in the United States, and but a short distance by rail from Stanford university. Proximity to these institutions has insured a high standard of excellence in the Oak- land public schools. Not only is the scholarship of Oakland pupils attested by the records issued annually in the reports of the examiners of schools to the president of the Univer- sity of California, but in many offices, business houses, and shops, their efficiency has been tested. The liberal spirit of the people of Oakland is fundamentally responsible for the school system which has been developed. Not only has the community sanctioned every pro- gressive educational step for years past, but with noteworthy civic pride it has voted bonds for the erection of buildings and the purchase of grounds until the district has acquired sufficient property in the crowded portions of the city to insure playgrounds and school sites for the future. During the past ten years, nineteen complete new and modern schools and extended additions to sites and grounds have been provided. The cost of these buildings and the sites on which they are located have been met for the most part by the following bonds issued: In 1904, $960,000; in 1906, $280,000; in 1911, $2,493,900; in 1914, $210,000. This means an aggregate sum of nearly $4,000,000 which the people have voluntarily added to their bonded indebtedness for buildings and grounds. In addition, approximate- ly H X vn O > r > z D H r^ o z n > r O X CD o o O r 18 ly $200,000 more has been expended from the current school funds for iHiikhng; improve- ments. When it came time to spend the proceeds of the big- ISIll bond issue, the Oakdand Board of Education did something-, which, according to the editor of the American School Board Journal, was done for the first time in any important city. A commission was ap- pointed which acted without pay, sitting twice a week for two months, and which included by correspondence, some of the leading experts on school architecture in the United States. After having carefully planned a program of building, the commission recommended the employment of a supervising architect, who called to his assistance several of the noted architects in the State. The present school plant includes forty-seven main school buildings, besides portables, shops, etc., twenty of which are of either brick or concrete. The equipment of all the schools is rapidly being improved and modernized. Adjustable seats are replacing the old types of furniture that fit neither the larger nor the smaller pupils of a grade, and as rapid- ly as possible modern sanitary appliances, and provisions for fire protection are being; added to the old buildings. The city has provided generously but not wastefully for the play and recreation of its children and for the future expansion of its school buildings. Nearly all of the down- town schools have at least a city block, and many of the newer schools have more. The Lock wood school, for instance, has nearly ei^^hteen acres in connection with the main buildings. The new Technical High School has a campus of eight acres. Several of the others have g-rpunds nearly as large. This year, the grounds of thirty of the schools have been equipped as regular play- grounds under the direction of the municipal recreation department. This equipment in- cludes steel playground and gymnasium apparatus and provision for the various forms of athletics and group games. The consulting landscape architect of the city is providing plans for the ornamentation of these grounds, and the planting of trees, shrubs and lawns is proceeding- as rapidly as funds will permit. Ten of these grounds are particularly well equipped and are kept open after school hours on school days, and all day on Saturday, and during vacations. On each ground at all such times, two special instructors, one for boys and one for girls, are employed. The other twenty grounds are kept open as playgrounds after school on school days, and each has a play teacher in charge. One of the more recent developments of the Oakland system is the expansion of kin- dergartens. In August, 1912, there were only seven kindergartens ; but under the provis- ions of the new State law, which became ettective in 1913, twenty-three more have been authorized. In elementary schools during the month of November, there were enrolled 20,0G3 pupils, of whom 16,654 are included in the grades one to six, inclusive. It is, therefore, evident that, since there are in all cities many pupils who do not enter the high schools, and are therefore deprived of the cultural and vocational courses there oft'ered. every ef- fort must be made to develop the opportunities of the grammar schools as fully as possi- ble. Accordingly the teachers in the public schools of Oakland are selected upon a merit system and are paid salaries which render it possible to employ and retain excellent teach- ers. An unusually large number are university graduates who have specialized along- one or more lines, while the majority of the remainder have prepared for teaching by a course of training in normal schools. The grammar schools are not stereotyped reproductions of each other ; on the contrary, while they, have been standardized to the extent of making the free transfer of pupils easy, they are adapted as far as possible to the needs of the local- ity in which they are placed. Certain general features, however, common to the whole sys- tem are worthy of special mention. One of the unicjue features of the Oakland schools is the flexible promotion system whereby either classes or individuals may be promoted at any time during the year. It thus happens that some children may advance more rapidly than others, if they are capable of doing so, and are not compelled to be constantly "marking time" while the slower pupils catch up. In other words, every pupil advances at his own rate of speed. The records show that many pupils are able to make two, or even more promotions in a single term. Manual training and domestic science and art are given to all pupils of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, the amount of time ranging from two to ten hours per week, The majority of the manual training instructors are also skilled mechanics. Elementary dressmaking is taught in the eighth grade. A great deal of emphasis is placed on music and drawing throughout the schools. The 19 teaching corps of each of these subjects is organized into a department with a director in charge, and the teaching is carefully supervised. Even in the upper grades of the elementar}^ school, these two subjects have a slightly vocational aspect. In drawing, pupils have an option between mechanical and freehand drawing, and in music they may elect band or orchestra in place of vocal music. There are at present thirty-three school bands and thirty school orchestras in the city. Special attention is given to concert work, and steps have already been taken toward community service in the way of public concerts. A great many of the more expensive instruments for these organizations are furnished by the Board of Education. The health supervision of the schools is entrusted to a director, an assistant director and nine nurses. All of these have had careful training for their work, and give their full time to it. In addition, a number of public and private clinics and hospitals have assisted ma- terially in caring for the health of the children. The aim of the department is not so much the treatment of the sick as the safeguard- ing of the health of the strong. Each child in the elementary schools is examined once each year, and then all cases which seem to demand attention are followed up by the nurses. One of the features of the Oakland school department which has attracted wide-spread attention is the psychological clinic or child study laboratory. Children, whose mental or nervous conditions requires special care are sent to this clinic for examination. Helpful advice as to care, treatment, and training at home and at school are given by the expert in charge. In connection with the psychological clinic, special classes are maintained for back- ward children and those needing peculiar individual attention for nervous or mental disor- ders. Several ungraded classes are also maintained for pupils who for some reason or other are unable to fit into the regular schoolroom procedure. Besides this, the city main- tains special classes for immigrants learning English, a class in preparation for citizenship, open air classes for anemic children, and a class for the deaf. Worthy of special mention in connection with the elementary schools is a new type of school to be known as the vocational school, which was opened on January 4. 1915, in the buildings formerly occupied by the Technical High School, Twelfth and Market streets. This is to be a trade school, the purpose of which is to provide preparatory trade and re- lated academic instruction for fcioys and girls who have the ability and the desire to en- gage in practical wage-earning occupations and to continue at the same time a general edu- cation, but who feel that they can not afiford the time for a four-year high school course. It will shorten the period of apprenticeship for young people desiring to enter trades and at the same time afford a good general education. The academic training, like the shop instruction, will be of a practical nature, and will consist of courses in English, history and civics, shop mathematics and arithmetic, geog- raphy, drawing, science and bookkeeping. Courses in dressmaking, millinery, salesman- ship, homemaking for girls, and in printing and various branches of the machinery and building trades for boys will be offered. The evening schools of the city are open to all young people or adults of Oakland who are desirous of pursuing regular academic branches, or who are interested in some special line of trade or commercial or cultura work. To meet these various needs, regu- lar evening classes are held in the Garfield, the Fremont High, and the Prescott Schools. In the Central Evening School, Oakland High School Building, in addition to regular grammar school work, there are classes in English for foreigners, in commercial subjects, sewing, dressmaking, and millinery^ music, drawing and academic high school subjects. There are in Oakland five departmental grammar schools, in which a somewhat more flexible course is offered in the seventh and eighth grades than in the regular elementary schools. As there are no district limits in Oakland, all pupils in these grades who desire to do so are able to pursue a course of study in accordance with which they may elect in addition to the prescribed fifteen hours, from ten to fifteen hours of departmental work in drawing, manual training, foreign language, or English literature. This system greatly en- larges the efficiency of the school, permitting the pupil who expects to learn a trade to take work which will increase the probabilities of his success when he goes to work or the prospective university student to begin the study of languages early. Up to the present, Oakland schools of this type have been styled intermediate or de- partmental grammar schools. In a recent announcement issued by Dr. P. P. Claxton. United States Commissioner of Education, specially organized schools of grades seven and eight or seven, eight, and nine, which provided for greater differentiation of studies are called "Junior High Schools." 20 1 1 > 1 4 1 -> o o X u CD o LlI CQ X > o X H CO n X o o p > r > m D > '-''- ■^''^V^'> >^'Vi^"^vr^^vvv;;vi:ooo, "■'i.V.^V.%V O :.rj?? liililMiiiHiiiMilililiMMiUiiUiHJ 32 In all of the four Oakland High Schools both a regul^^r 'academic course prep.aratory to the university and a general elective course designed to; tit/in'div3dual"'i!l^*elk? a/^ given The institution is organized under the following departments f 'English/ history, foreign languages, mathematics, drawing, science, home economics, music, commercial branches, and physical training. The Oakland Technical High School, which in January moved to its new plant at 43d street and Broadway, has, in addition to the foregoing, fully equipped shops for instruction in machinery and building trades. This building has been erected at a cost of more than half a million dollars, and represents the most modern ideas in school architect- ure, lighting and sanitation. It is provided with every convenience for use, not only by the school, but by the entire community. The public education of the present day, however, has a broader aspect than the train- ing of youth. With the growth of the community spirit and the special facilities provided in the schools for neighborhood needs, a course of free lectures has been provided for adults which was attended last year by more than 20,000 persons. In addition, a com- munity orchestra has been organized which not only affords musical instruction and recrea- tion to persons who might otherwise neglect musical training already commenced, but which will in return render service to the public in the way of public entertainment. Berkeley and Alameda Schools The schools of Berkeley and Alameda are in line with those of Oakland in progress- ive spirit and activity. In Berkeley there are in the elementary schools 21 men teachers and 168 women, paid annually $241,508.86, with an average daily attendance of 5141. There are 11 kinder- garten teachers, with an average daily attendance of 313, and a total salary roll of $11,425. The average daily High School attendance is 1,411, and there are 25 men teachers and 42 women, with a total annual salary of $102,894.15, and graduating 105 boys and 140 girls for the year 1914-15. There are evening schools for adults and working boys and girls in the Berkeley sys- tem, while school gardens, dental and school inspection, a printing department, a school sav- ings system, manual training, music, domestic science, drawing, and the use of school build- ings for social center activities are among the progressive features in Berkeley. A $500,- 000 bond issue was recently voted for new school buildings and grounds. The City of Alameda has always taken a very pardonable pride in its schools. In the first place, the citizens of Alameda are of a kind that recognize the importance of good schools. These same citizens recently, by an overwhelming vote, carried a bond issue amounting to three hundred thousand dollars for new schoolhouses and additional school property. There are over four thousand children attending the public schools in Alameda, about six hundred of whom are registered in the High School. Besides this number, there are two hundred children at present enrolled in the public kindergartens. The elementary school classes average about thirty-one pupils to the teacher, an average that compares favorably with the most efficient city school departments in the United States. The Alameda High School gives vocational, as well as college preparatory courses. Vocational Guidance plays an important part in this school. Part-time courses are ar- ranged for upper class students interested in mechanical lines, and these same part-time students receive a just wage for all work done in the shops co-ordinated with the Alameda school system. 33 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE T AC. STAMPED EE^w^^ ^^TE AN INITIAL FINF nr. n. ""-^^^"^^'^iHSSWi^, ^^21-20^-5/39 (9269s) Gaylord Bros. Makers Syracuse, N. Y. PAT. JAN, 21,1908 rnM7q033gl 3 2,7 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY •>^^t.v