TEACHERS ASSOCIATION WILL HOLD ANNUAL MEETING HERE

Celebrating a half-century of teaching, the Harvard Teachers Association will hold its fiftieth annual meeting here tomorrow. Columnist Walter Lippmann, who was to have been the featured speaker on the occasion, will not be present.

At the banquet luncheon, special tribute will be paid to Paul H. Hanus, professor of the History and Art of Teaching, emeritus, who founded the organization in 1891. since its inception, the Association has fostered the Graduate School of Education and has cooperated with it to improve teaching methods.

Conferences This Week

During this week, the School of Education is sponsoring a series of conferences at which New England educators discuss teaching problems which range from the measurement of intelligence to the pronunciation of French.

More than pure educational theory is brought up in the meetings, since the economic question of teacher supply was recently the subject of a heated debate in which an executive of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association took part.

Other aspects of the conferences which take on wide significance are the problems of the National Youth Administration work aid that is being given to needy high school students. Last night, A. L. Knoblauch, a member of the Gallup Poll, spoke on the relation of public opinion to education.

Before the founding of the Teachers Association in 1891, teaching was looked upon as a mere craft or set of skills which could be learned by rule. Instructors did not have to measure up to any standard of knowledge of their subjects. In the late 1880's, a movement in Massachusetts to establish a state university, which should emphasize the training of teachers, was met, in 1891, by President Professor Hanus to teach education in the Department of Philosophy.

At first, Professor Hanus' courses did not count for a degree. On the contrary, because they dared to deal with educational problems, the courses were regarded by the teachers of the College as an "insult to the gods." On Professor Hanus' arrival, George H. Palmer, noted professor of Philosophy, somewhat skeptically exclaimed, "Ah, Professor Hanus, so you have come from the West to teach us how to teach!"

Formation of Graduate School

Finally the courses in Education were counted for a degree, and, in 1906, they were separated from the rest of the Philosophy Department, and were made a division of the Faculty, with offices in Lawrence Hall.

In 1920, Professor Henry W. Holmes '03, the present chairman of the University Committee on Educational Relations, was instrumental in obtaining the $2,000,000 endowment with which was Graduate School of Education was founded.

Having come a long way from teach- ing as a craft, the School, cooperating with President Conant in 1936, started giving the degree of Arts in Teaching to those who could demonstrate competence in the subjects in which they were to teach, their understanding of the social and individual significance of education, and their skill as teachers. This is one of the few Master's degrees given in America for proven accomplishment rather than for credits is courses.

Present Teachers Association

The Teachers Association has always had a close connection with the School of Education. Charles Swain Thomas '97, professor of Education, emeritm, has been for the last eight-years Secretary-Treasurer of the Association. Its members include anyone who is interested in education, whether or not he belongs to the University