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Show IIBATTELL RESEWTS TIE STATEMENTS OF THE ILLS PEOPLE Editor Standard: As one who signed sign-ed the call for the mass meeting or February 6, I resent the charge that. Jft Its Inception or conduct, the mass meeting was in any way Inimical to the freedom of speech or the press At the Sunday Night club, Superin-tondent Superin-tondent Mills interpreted the law as' giving him arbitrary power over and' above the school board on the halt-day halt-day question and characteristically concluded "So much for the law." According to Mr. Mills at that time the aims' and objects of the half-day plan would be fully satisfied when tho pupil was bound over to work in the family poultry yard one-half of each school day. I The mass meeting clinched the responsibility re-sponsibility of the school board and called a halt on the "insurrectionary character" of Superintendent Mills- action on the half-day school. -If Professor Moench had not been ; asleep, or riding a hobby, he would i have seen Mr. Mills, take an intellectual intellec-tual cropper at the mass meeting when, in reply to Mr. Johnson who supported the resolution and "others" who spoke against his plan, he "agreed with all of them." D R. Wheelwright should know I tfiat sarcasm and ridicule are world 5 movers when argument becomes a boomerang against indirection and' ' conceit. ; lh good faith, we have asked for ! the why and details of the half-day plan and have been met with insolence, inso-lence, personality and drivels. Who " could add to the sarcasm, uncon-,4 uncon-,4 scious though it be yet discernible all along the line, as in Professor t Moench's estimate of the mass meeting, meet-ing, thai this community is composed !,. of ignoramuses, r Vocational training In the schools f and a half-day out of them on tne ' labor market are two different 1 things. - Mr. Agce found that his grandchildren grandchil-dren were capable of learning spells' spell-s' ing about six times as fast as they p were doing in school. I" The following letters are self-ex-i planatory when it is known that the ,f child referred to could sing-song all L the reading lessons but knew only a possible half dozen letters of the al-i, al-i, phabet: "Ogden, Feb. IS, 1914. if "Dear Madam: Your child is do-.; do-.; ing very poor work in reading. If f. she does not " improve in her work i it will be impossible to promote her (j' at the end of the year. Respectfully," j (Signed) ' "Ogden City Schools, Feb. 20, 1914. J. "Dear Madam: We do not use the alphabet very much In tho first grade except for writing and spelling. The !t children learn their reading work by sounding them. Each letter has a I sound and the children put these f sounds together to make new words. J Then, after they can sound a word i; they memorize it- If you wish I can ' send you a list of the sounds which J I am teaching in this grade. For Monday will read page nine 'I in her book. Respectfully." f (Signed) Written and spoken English, are J two different propositions. If writing was by sound, as in shorthand, the alphabet would be all the more neces- sary. As a lie is the refuge 6t the ' weak, so the child's "reading" is a ' mockery. 'I The personnel of a school system ' that withholds the -alphabet and sub- stltutes phonogrnphs for teachers in t the lower gradeB and remains igno-7 igno-7 Tant of the stench arising from the ROTTEN BAD conditions existing in the school buildings, which ' are' according ac-cording to Architect Hodgson too horrible for publicity and yet pleads the necessity for a Bocial center and gymnasiums. Verilv such a personnel person-nel needs if it does not Invite investigation. inves-tigation. Respectfully, (Signed) EUGENE A. BATTELL n n |