Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 27, 1928, edition 1 / Page 3
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Two North Carolina Women are Members of University Faculty Bj LUCY 31. COBB When the trustees of the Univer sity of North Carolina decided that rather than cripple the Department of Education they would break all' precedent and have women on the faculty, the dean of the department, Prof. N. W. Walker, got busy and found two North Carolinians to take the two important places of extension professor of education and resident professor of elementary education. He picked them not because they were North Carolinians per se, but because they fitted the place and because the State needed them. Two Women Elected It was at the trustees meeting in May that these two women were elected and Mif s Sallie B. Marks came in June to teach in the Summer school while Miss Cecelia Bason, of Burlington, began her wojk with the fall session. Miss Bason has head quarters in Asheville, and goes from there to hold extension classes at various places in the Western part of the State, while Miss Marks is pro fessor of elementary education and lives in Chapel Hill. And the ultra conservative of the village have not found the women professors different f roa other well educated women of the place. It is true she does not have day, time for card parties and" other women's organizations, and neither do many other busy women, butjshe and a friend keep house, and arc jsst as hospitable as the other housewives of Chapel Hill in their hours off duty. Miss Marks is originally from Albe marle. She was in high school there and later attended the Mississippi Wo atan's College at Meridan, Miss issippi, at which school a friend of her mother's was on the faculty. Both her mother and father were North Carolinians, her mother being Aurana Hall Marks, and her father Whitman Marks. Miss Marks did her first teaching in Oklahoma, and took her first degree there at South western State Normal (nowv South western Teachers' College), at Weatherford, Oklahoma. She also studied four summers at the Univer sity of Chicago. She majored in ele mentary education at Weatherford, and did so again at Teachers' College of Columbia University where she took her master's degree and did work toward her doctorate. Manuscript Writing While at Columbia Miss Marks car ried on the first experiment in manu script writing in the public schools of America. England teaches this form altogether now, and had begun the work before the World War. Miss Marks is most enthusiastic about this revived form of writing. "So many people write so illegibly that you can't read their writing," she says. "When printing came in it put aside the writers of manuscripts, but all the older writing was done in this form. Most of our present writing has been taken from engravers who used embellishments and curly-cues, insteadof from writers who used a form similar to that of modern print- children are provident and have sav ings accounts. The new system had so improved their writing that the banks had trouble recognizing their signatures, but this was soon straight ened out. Miss Marks told how a study of orm was given children through this new system. When a child writes or draws he holds up his work and ad mires it because he has done it, but with this new writing a definite means of measuring his work was given the child. Onion skin paper,' through which he could see ruled squares, was. given each child. He could" hold this up and look through it at his own work and see that the top of the writ ing was not even, that the bottom 1 was not and that he did not slant his etters uniformly. Legibility depends upon the spac ing, and even the posture of the child is shown by the form of the letters, or he writes with a broad pen, and the way the letters are shaded show he amount of pressure he exercises and how he sat at his work. When Dr. W. H. Allen, director of the Pub ic Service Institute of. New York made a survey of the public school system the "high schools were given Experiment in New York Schools Hiss Marks then told how she took four grades in a school in New York City, two first grades, and two fifth o-rarloR Tirfid off the children as to nationality and ability, and gave thfim manuscript writine. The ex periment was carried on throughout one semester and at the conclusion of the test it was observed that the "printed writing was much easier to teach, was much more beautiiui, occu pied much less space, and could be written more rapidly. In Chapel Hill Miss Sallie Pleasants is teaching it, the plan having been brought back from New York by Miss Glass, the principal of thS primary school- Miss Marks started off the class and now Miss Pleasants is carrying it on most successfully. This manuscript writ isg resembles print except the forms of the letters are simpler, only straight lines and circles, or parts of circles, being used to form the letters. Miss Marks has a college friend who alwavs writes to her in manuscript writiag. "Doesn't it do away with individu ality?" I asked. "No, it makes for it." she answered. "Different people use a different slant and also as they use it they just naturally join the letters together." Miss Marks sent aa exhibit of this writing to the Na tional Education Association when it met in Washington. In writing tests it has been shown that more speed is made when curves are eliminated. These tests have done away with ex pert, research work to show whether or not the claims made by the .Lng hah are true. English Use It A rather amusing situation was rested in connection with this work. Some of the patrons of the "schools in New York had heard that the fcngiisn had had trouble with the new sys- ta, and upon inquiry they touna me trouble was this: The English scnoo to the school in which Miss Marks had tried her experiment because of the writing. Many high grade priv ate schools, such as Horace Mann and Lincoln High School now use thi3 system, and St. Cloud, Minnesota uses it throughout the city schools. Cosmopolitan Attitude Miss Marks belonged to the Cos mopolitan Club in New York, for she said she wanted to overcome race prejudice. As one of her bestfriends is a girl from India, the first woman of India to take a doctor's degree, she thought she had largely done so, but when she was putting on this experi ment in writing she motivated it through giving the children words connected with their daily life, and something happened that mads her fear prejudice remained. One Valen tine's Day they wrote the word "love" and used it in a valentine for their teacher was sick. The next day she told the children they might be flow ers, and when she asked the only colored boy in the class, "Buster, what will you be?" and he answered, "Poison Ivy," she said she feared her race prejudice had not been entirely eliminated and had affected the child. Assistant Superintendent of Schools From Columbia University Miss Marks went to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, at which place she , was assistant su perintendent of schools, and in that position she had entire charge of the elementary schools of the city. Here she did a definite piece of work which she hopes to carry on in this State. Interested in giving a definite check to the outside reading done by the ele mentary grade pupils, she has -devised a plan by which the child answers cer tain questions on the books he reads, such questions as he could not ans wer from the report of another child nor from having the other child tell him the story. Taking as a basis the Wisconsin bopk list, Miss Marks has made ques tions on three hundred books already, and she believes this list should be added to as newbooks of the better variety come out. Up to this time, although the high school has methods for reporting on reading, there has the been no adequate method for grades. Miss Marks thinks that one of the pitfalls of childhood is trying to get by with something. With her plan the child will show that he has really read the book. The list already mimeographed shows a large choice of reading matter and using the Chapel Hill school as a practice school, Miss Marks is making an effort to get good reading, matter for the children in the elementary grades. These grades have been the "betwixt and between" grades when it came to the work of educators. (Continued on page four) K We have heated every University building constructed tciihin the past eight years. Carolina Heating- & Engineering Co. HEATING, VENTILATING AND POWER PIPING 318 Holland Street " Wm. H. Rowe, Mgr. Durham, N. a TOWER'S FISH BRAND VARSITY SLICKERS The most stylish and practical rainy day garments jor college men ana women ASK FOR FISH BRAND -rOWER A. J. TOWER CO. BOSTON MASS SUCKERS BY NAME YOUR DEALER HAS THEM THE CESUVE WATtinmOQF OILED CLOTHING VARIETY Or STYLES AND COLORS sis i I Another leading tobacconist in ' v. Ij j Chapel Hill, N.C., says: - r j j I tQr e past 9 9 9 old ff ' n GOLDS have been my fastest- ' HW ! '; j I growing cigarette. Sales have Jf L'l f J j gone up steadily month after p 'fl j - fjf month, and there doesn't seem liilift I - I to be any let-up in this new BggV i 'M cigarette's popularity " " Jf M,, I - i mw- , t Patterson Bros. ,i -f. W I1B f,.liihiliii.llMriiiy,-.Tfin--a3iW'1f'i'rrm---i rinrarr 1 ' ' ' ' r -m-Mviiiwii-i..i,ii ,.,..,..,, r.n v n ii"imi irriiiriiminillimnri-nrt-. :.jWwn.i uMirtu change: - rr.. -' a m u. m s a -.-.-.-x- .-i 1 . a most refreshing c? Follow your this smoother f t i e n d s a n d sm o k e and better cigarette O P. LoriHard Co., Est. 1760
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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March 27, 1928, edition 1
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