Some Relief

In Michigan last week 1,500 rural schools opened prematurely, to save as much as possible in fuel while the weather is still warm. In other States, where schools closed early last spring and looked as if they would stay closed this autumn, educators took heart. They were going to get Federal help. To be sure, not the thoroughgoing help they had long been asking for, but nevertheless something. Federal Emergency Relief Administrator Harry Lloyd Hopkins announced that unemployed school teachers would be put in rural schools that might otherwise have been closed. They will receive work-relief wages, through State relief administrations.

Officials in 33 States report 80,000 unemployed teachers. In 15 States, school terms have been shortened. The Federal plan, patterned after one which New York State first put in effect, will help particularly rural districts, which must provide their own funds for fuel, textbooks, lighting, etc. etc. City districts will receive aid only if they use it for courses for adult illiterates (in which the U. S. Government thinks it has a proper stake).

Chicago teachers were among the first last week to wonder if they would get relief money. They learned they would get little, if any. Meanwhile they hoped to get two weeks back pay, for last January, and heard they might get full pay for this year through a plan by which the U. S. Government would buy $40,000,000 worth of Chicago school bonds.

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