Education: Brown Studies

Unusual lessons are being taught to first-graders in Chicago’s public schools. One is a story called Billy’s Ride, which ends as follows:

“A Policeman held up his hand and the cars stopped. Although Billy was usually polite, he stared and stared! He had never seen a colored policeman. ‘Mother,’ Billy called, ‘Look at the brown policeman.’ ‘Yes,’ said Mother, ‘there are many brown policemen. In our country we have many kinds of helpers.’ Just then the policeman waves his hand for the cars to move on. Then Billy and Jack did have an exciting time. They were looking for more brown policemen.”

While first-graders learn about Negro policemen and Pullman porters, other primary pupils (white and colored) are being told of Negro contributions to civilization, U.S. history, the war effort. Examples of Negro subject matter woven into the general class material:

> 2nd grade: George Washington Carver (TIME, Jan. 18), who made many things “from funny little peanuts.”

> 3rd grade: Life in West Africa’s Dahomey as an example of the ancestors of U.S. Negroes.

> 4th grade: The careers of Negro notables such as Contralto Marian Anderson, Bass-Baritone Paul Robeson.

> 5th grade: “Chicago’s first settler, Negro Jean Baptiste Point de Saible.”

> 6th grade: Negro Captain Alonzo Pietro of Columbus’ good ship Nina.

> 7th grade: U.S. slavery and its abolition.

> 8th grade: Negro military heroes, contemporary Chicago Negroes.

The person who originated this program and got Chicago’s Board of Education to okay it is a handsome, 36-year-old Negro teacher, Madeline Robinson Morgan. She is the wife of a civilian foreman at Chicago’s Army Quartermaster Depot. As a girl Mrs. Morgan knew days and nights of terror, during Chicago’s 1919 race riots. She got a master’s degree in education at Northwestern University, taught at Chicago’s Emerson School.

Mrs. Morgan got a year and a half’s leave to do research, work out a curriculum, integrate it with the school program as a whole. She says she had her “fingers crossed all the time but most teachers are enthusiastic about the material and children take it as a matter of course.” Mrs. Morgan hopes for a change in “quality of attitudes” but expects no miracles. She is pleased that New York City schoolauthorities show interest, that Chicago’s Catholic pedagogues are planning a similar step.