Education: Little Red Schoolhouse

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Last autumn Columbia's President Nicholas Murray Butler surveyed the intricacies of modern education, thought of his own simple school days in Elizabeth, N. J., emitted a nostalgic lament: "It has become customary to abuse and sneer at the little red schoolhouse of two generations ago, but if that little red schoolhouse was presided over by a teacher of rich and warm personality ... it was an almost ideal educational instrumentality."

From one of his own subordinates last week President Butler received a stern tut-tutting. In his annual report, Dean William F. Russell of Columbia's Teachers College wrote: "The little red schoolhouse, with its ignorant teacher, slight equipment, few books, red-hot stove and icy walls has become glorified in some minds; distance has lent enchantment; and the inference is that if we should only return to the good old days all would be well.

"In the Province of Alberta in Canada a political party . . . promised $25 a month to every worthy citizen. ... If there is any place on the American continent where the old conservative educational ideals hold full sway, it is the Province of Alberta. There they are innocent of 'modern' educational methods. They are guiltless of progressive education. They center their attention upon reading, writing and arithmetic. Nevertheless the citizens of Alberta voted to pay themselves $25 a month."