Monday, Aug. 05, 1929

World Congress

Two thousand teachers gathered in Geneva's great exposition hall last week, roamed among 140 stands of educational exhibits. Teachers of children examined with interest a tremendous collection of the world's best children's books, partially selected by children themselves.* Progressive pedagogs stopped in the commercial section where educational films were being projected continually, or wandered to the exhibit of Britain's use of radio in teaching. Most modern, and with greatest possibilities perhaps, was a "home talkie" made by Home Talkie Productions, Inc., giving a biology professor's lecture as if he were in a classroom. Most of the teachers attending the exhibit, which will remain open during August, were in Geneva for the Congress of the World Federation of Education Associations, begun six years ago in the U. S. by Dr. Augustus Orloff Thomas. State Superintendent of Public Schools in Maine and President of the Congress. While the aim of the Federation is to discuss the significant movements in education, this year it is being devoted especially to the promotion of peace through education. Prof. Gilbert Murray of Oxford. President of the League of Nations Committee of Intellectual Cooperation, warned against expecting too much from teaching citizenship, foreign languages, or from travel. He concluded. "... A better road to international goodwill is to cultivate common memories, associations, and aims. That is. to cultivate such subjects as ancient history, Latin, or physical science."

* The first to use picture books in teaching children was Johann Amos Comenius, famed educator of the 17th Century, a radical in an age of musty pedantry. Last week in the Church ot Xarden. Holland, was found a skeleton believed to be his.