Brookline High School - Murivian Yearbook (Brookline, MA)

Page 25 text:

C- -9 0-0 A [IHETEEH THIRTY-THREE iFlnmtrr Uanmrii At the recent Institute of Character Developing Forces in Boston, our State Commissioner of Education, Dr. Payson Smith, gave utterance to his conviction ' that the subject of Money Management should rank next to Health in importance as a part of the modern school curriculum. His opinion is rapidly coming to be shared by people of all walks of life, and has been expressed by another noted educator as follows: . .... “Financial education should have its beginnings the minute a child starts to think in terms of money, and should continue thereafter by means of allowances at home, specific teaching in all the schools, and advanced courses in college that are required for a degree Brookline has the distinction of being the first place in the country, if not in the world, to include Money Management in its curriculum, and Miss Florence Barnard was the one appointed in the fall of 1028 to become the first Manager of Economic Education throughout a public school system. Years of intensive study, on the problem of how human beings can live well-rounded, well-balanced lives through the scientific management of money, had qualified Miss Barnard for this position. By experimentation since that time, she has evolved a thoroughly practical and skillfully educative plan for strengthening and stabilizing the foundations of our whole financial structure. Her method makes vivid the fact that out of the wise use of money (regardless of the size of income) there is a growing apprecia- tion and acquirement of spiritual values which result in enrichment of life for the individual. It also carries with it a high moral training that is significant and fundamental for social progress. Miss Barnard’s activities in the field of Economics have extended far beyond Brookline. Among the ways she has been and is at present serving are the fol- lowing: As Chairman of the Economic Committee of the Massachusetts Teachers’ Federation, Chairman of the Economic Education Committee of the Massachu- setts Parent-Teacher Association, Member of the National Education Association Committee (of five) on the Economic Status of the Teacher, Member of the N. E. A. Committee on Home Economics, Member of the Council of the American Provident Society. She is also the author of the “Outline on Thrift Education’’ which, in a nation-wide contest open to all teachers, received first prize from the National Association of Mutual Savings Banks. Her special abilities in this field and the value of her work have come to be recognized by leaders of organizations of widely varying interests, such as: Better Business Bureaus: National Council of Superintendents; General Federation of Women’s Clubs; American Bankers’ Association; State and National Girl Scouts; National Congress of Parents and Teachers: National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs as well as Y. W. C. A. and Rotary Club groups. Formal recognition was given to Miss Barnard’s work by Congresswoman Rogers in a speech before the House of Representatives on July 14, 1932, and by the introduction before Congress of a Joint Resolution Dec. 7, 1932 : “That the Commissioner of Education in the Department of the Interior is authorized and directed to collect full information concerning the Florence Barnard plan of time and money management, to make a studv of such plan, and to make such infor- mation and the results of such study available for the use of the schools and the people throughout the United States.” Because of the call for activitv in these wider fields, Miss Barnard is soon to withdraw from active service in Brookline. Through her many years of devo- tion to the cause of education in this town, her qualities of mind and heart have won for her the loyalty of all students and fellow-teachers who have known her well. We shall miss her from our midst, and wish for her the success and satisfac- tion that her faithfulness and contribution merit. 13