DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR
BUREAU OF EDUCATION
WASHINGTON
Doctor Irwin Shepard,
Secretary National Educational Association,
Westminster Hotel,
Boston, Mass.My dear Doctor Shepard: The preamble and resolution enclosed herewith have been sent to me by the Woman's National Rivers and Harbors Congress, Mrs Hoyle Tomkies, of Shreveport, Louisiana, as President National Educational Association at its Boston meeting. Following our ordinary course in such matters, may I ask you to lay this matter before the committee on resolutions.
You are aware of the conservative position which I take as regards proposals for the incorporation of new studies in our school curriculum, and also as regards the turning aside of our school instructions from the aims of general education to the propaganda of any special cause. The organization presenting this resolution, however, disclaim any intention of introducing a separate new study in the course. The subject which they propose, however, is one so intimately bound up with the geographical conditions and the past history of this country, as well as with our prospect for the future, that it seems to me very desirable that the attention of teachers should be called to it, and that they should be led to see its relation to any proper and adequate treatment of a knowledge of our country. I should think it very desirable, accordingly, that something of this kind be introduced into the platform of the Association of this year, with such adaptation of form and phraseology as the common practice of the Association would suggest.
I am, believe me,
Very truly yours,
[Signed] Elmer Ellsworth Brown, Commissioner.
As to the action of the National Educational Association regarding the resolution, Dr Shepard wrote to me in part as follows: "I sincerely regret that you were not duly informed earlier of the action, or rather the non-action, of the Committee on Resolutions. I cannot explain their action in this matter. They had a large number of subjects to consider, and the omission of a declaration upon any subject is not to be considered as a judgment against such a declaration, but simply that the Committee did not find it practicable, for reasons satisfactory to them, to include it in the declarations which they offered. Incidentally I may suggest to you the present uncertainty regarding what is meant by Conservation and the wisest policies to be adopted may have led them to defer action in this matter. Let me assure you that we are all deeply interested in Conservation, and believe that it can be profitably brought into the work of the public schools, but many are still uncertain as to the form of such work and the methods by which it can be most profitably introduced into the public school curriculum."
Members of this Congress, there is in this non-action a suggestion potent to us. This indecision, this lack of harmony, should speedily as possible be changed into a definite, harmonious union of Conservation policies (applause). This fall a printed catechism of questions on Conservation adapted to the various grades will become a part of the curriculum of the public schools of Kentucky, and will be tried in various other States.
Delegates have been sent by the Women's National Rivers and Harbors Congress to all important conventions of kindred interests. Since organization it has had representative speakers on the platform of many of the most important conventions. The Congress has furnished lecturers to schools and to various clubs of men and women, and also to the churches, in which latter the subject of "Conservation of Natural Resources from the Moral Standpoint" has proved an appropriate and impressive theme.
In December, 1909, the Congress endorsed the disinterested and patriotic policy of Honorable Gifford Pinchot as Chief Forester of the United States. (Applause)
This report cannot satisfactorily be closed without mention of the loyal and very enthusiastic support of Conservation being given us by our Hawaiian members, who number several hundred, and who began immediately to put belief into practice. Our State vice president there, Mrs A. F. Knudson, came all the way to Washington to attend our last convention.
These are the general activities of the organization. It would be impossible for me to go into the State activities at this time. Sufficient to say that the message is being given at the fireside, from the platform, in the schools, through the press, all with the idea of perpetuating this Nation—won by the blood of our forefathers—and handing it down in all the glory of its wealth and beauty to future generations. (Applause)