San Diego State University - Del Sudoeste Yearbook (San Diego, CA)

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WHITE AND GOLD 7 Joumeyings WW BY FORMER PRESIDWI' 8. T. BLACK ' Leaving San Diego on the morning of September seventh, 1910, we travelled by train to Seattleastopping 0135 for a few days in Oakland and San Francisco to say good-bye to friends and relatives. Then up the gorge of the Sacramento, round the base of majestic Shasta, on through the States of Oregon and Washington, clothed in autumnal tints, we journeyed pleas- antly enough. We boarded the good steamship iiMinnesotaii at Seattle and began our westward voyage, sailing westerlyealways westerly-towards the east. In two weeks we reached the other side and were in the Orient- Japan! What a wonderful countryeinhabited by an equally wonderful and intensely interesting peopleI-in many ways the most interesting of all the many peoples we have met. They are bright, courteous, honest and cheerful. The streets of their cities literally swarm with merry, well-be- haved children, who were as much interested in us as we were in them. We spent three most delightful weeks in travelling through the country. One is impressed everywhere with the efficiency of the J apanese They are quite cap able of taking care of themselves and can hold their own with the most advanced western nations. After a week in Yokohama, and another in Tokio, the capital twhere it rained all the timeD, our steps then turned southward to Kyoto, the ancient capital, where we met friends Whom we had known in California thirty, years ago and more. We visited schools, shops, tea houses, parks, private residences, castles, and royal palaces. Only in schoolhouses did we find any furniture. Even the palaces are destitute of furniture. The iioors are covered with rich matting, and the walls are adorned with specimens of Japanese art. The natives use their feet for chairs, and the matted iioors serve both for tables and beds. We could not catch the sitting art, so we just lolled around as best we could-much to the delight and amusement of our hosts. After seeing J apanese women and girls load our steamer With coal at Nagasaki, we turned to the south for three days, and entering the Yang-tsi-Kiang River, we dropped anchor at Shanghai. Foreign Shanghai, that is, that portion made up of concessions to foreign nations, is a beautiful, up-to-date city, with all the advantages of the most modern civilization-churches, schools, clubs, parks, athletic grounds, beautiful homes, splendid equipages drawn by spirited horses and driven by gorgeous coachmen. The honk, honk of the automobile is as familiar here as among western nations. Electric cars are as common as in the United States. The jinrikisha and the wheelbarrow of the native may also be seen ming- ling with the modern means of locomotion. Shanghai is one of the wealthiest of oriental cities, and is generally known as the Paris of the Orient. But there is another Shanghai, inclosed by walls and inhabited by natives. It is char- acterized chiefly by its bad smells, its narrow, dirty streets; its beggars, jugglers, and thieves. 0 yes, we visited it, in charge of a guide, and then took a bath. Hong Kong was our next stopping place. It is an English city, and therefore clean and well governed. It consists of an island mountain--the ' streets zig-zagging across its face up to an elevation of some 2000 feet. Its electric-lighted streets present a charming sight at night from the ships anchored in the bay. A very pleasant day was spent here. We went up to iiThe Peak by ,ricksha and funicular railway, whence we had a gor- geous view of the bay, the China sea, the ocean, and some ttback country. After leaving Hong Kong we ran into a typhoonethe real thing. The least said about our experiences there the better. We don,t often think about it.

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6 WHITE 'AND GOLD Truly, all of us must admit that while we have had faith in teaching, we have not had that full faith and confidence in teachers that we would have if we knew that their professional attainments were based' upon a novitiate thoroughgoing in fundamentals followed by a period of real apprenticeship in the public system, and concluded by a year of study of the problems and methods of teaching done in the light of a real and responsible teaching experience. Modern society pins its faith on teaching, on the educative process. Society will have an equal faith in teachers, as the conductors of that process, when it is sure that they have something to teach and a truly professional skill in teaching it,-when it is reasonably assured that the teacher is not only a master of arts and letters, but equally a master of life. Since the foundations of life are physical, it should be the aim of any school dedicated to the training of teachers, to give an adequate physical education to all of its students, particularly to the pupils of the training school. In that school, at least, the whole conception should be, as nearly as possible, right, from the beginning. For this reason, adequate facilities, tincluding lockers and shower bathsl for playground work and athletics Will be installed on the campus for the training school, and proper, system- atic, physical education will be given to the children of the elementary school as well as to the students of the normal school. The giving of assist- anCe in the direction of this work will be an invaluable experience to the future teacher. Other new projects to be undertaken by the school are: the installation of a department of elementary agriculture, with especial reference to the work of the rural school; the equipment of a laboratory for work in edu- cation; an increase in the amount of training in rhythmic movement, oral expression and dramatization of history and literature in the elementary school; properly graded instruction in sex hygiene in the upper grades of the training school and full discussion of its problems in the student-teach- ersl conferences ; the olfering of one hundred hours of elective work in the upper division of the senior year, together with other developments in curri- culum and administration that cannot be here set forth for lack of space. You will pardon me, if in conclusion, I reiterate the thought that the day is past when the relation that a Normal School bears to the people can be narrowly formal and institutional. A school for teachers must be a living part of the Whole social body. As such, the more it has of distinctive social personality and the less of the spirit of the bureaucratic functionaire, the more will it be' able to foster for State service the loyalty and enthusiasm that have, in these latter years, been invoked by the ideal of service for one is city. It was this thought that led ex-President Black to declare, at a dinner in San Diego at which the leading men of the city were present to do him honor, All that I am, I owe to California. Our response to this pledge is instant, for all that we, as men and women in public service, are and can be, we will gladly owe to California.

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8 WHITE AND GOLD It consisted chiefly of waves and circular wind blowing at the rate of 110 miles an hour. This so far was our only bad weather. Leaving it behind, we soon anchored in the equatorial city of Singapore, where we were wel- comed by Miss Harriett Read, a graduate of the NNormal on the Hill . Miss Read 1s doing a grand work here. She has charge of the primary grades at Oldham Hall-a large missionary school. We can never forget the pleas- ure of that day. After visiting the school we took a long irickisha ride through a cocoanut plantation-and later an automobile ride through the city and out to a rubber plantation, where we learned how rubber is ex- tracted from the trunks of the rubber tree. In the evening we waved good- bye to Miss Read and her friends from the deck of the ttYorck as we sailed away, and turned northward towards Penang, where a day was pleas- antly spent among the beauties of a tropical island. Five days more and we landed at Colombo, Ceylon. Our stay here was altogether too short- only one day. But we crowded into that all that was possible. A party of us hired a carriage, and we kept it going through tropical forests and native villages till sun-down. The natives of Ceylon are a most charming people-happy as the happiest of children. In fact they are children, and their little thefts are those of little childrene'that is, not thefts at all. It was here, or perhaps, elsewhere, that natives in canoes crowded 'round the steamer crying ti ten cent, fire away, all the time. And if a ten cent piece was thrown overboard a dozen semi-naked brown-skinned natives leapt from their canoes, and, soon, one of them appeared on the surface with the coin in his teeth, and ,clambered into his canoe ready for another dive.. Leaving Colombo we started westward on an eleven-day voyage through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to Port Said in Egypt. This was the most delightful part of our sea experience. The weather was not oppressive, but one did not need much clothing either day or night. Many of the passen- gers were English. There were also a Prince de Bourbon and an Austrian Baron. The Prince was a. gentleman. We all know the English to be lovers of all kinds of sport. Under the leadership of the English governor of Borneo, a series of games was organiZed, with prizes for the Winners. Twen- ty one prizes were offered for the various contests, and eleven of these were won by passengers from Southern California. What do you think of that? We arrived at Port Said on Thanksgiving Day, and took the train to Cairo, where we spent nearly four weeks among the pyramids and other antiquities of an ancient civilization. We crossed the desert tin a rain stormi on the hurricane decks of donkeys followed by yelling donkey boys on foot. At the end of the journey, the donkeys were removed from underneath us, and there we stood as stiE as theSphinx itself for some minutes until circulation was restored. Then we moved slowly and sadly on to a place of refresh- ment, where we rested for some time. Those days in Egypt were full of interest. We visited a university which is simply a great hollow square Without a roof. Groups of students from thirteen to sixty years of age tall malesi, led by teachers, were scattered all over the place, sitting on their haunches, memorizing the Koran in a kind of sing-song tone. Seeing that there were over a thousand students, it is easy to imagine the effect the noise and confusion had upon the nerves of Western teachers. We visited the Arab quarters of the city Where the bazaars are located in which thousands of artisans are engaged in all kinds of useful and decorative arts. The streets are all narrow tsome of them narroweri and dirty, with the ever-present Oriental smell that a westerner can never get used to. This smell is found from Japan all along the line to Northern Italy. One can never forget it. New Cairo is a well-laid-out and beautiful city. But Eng- land has a great problem here, as she has all over the Orient. Its solution is in the remote future.