Education: Wanted: Woodsheds?

“If Lewis can strike, so can we!” shouted one of the kids. Soon there were 1,200 of them snake-dancing through four miles of Jersey City streets. They didn’t like a change in their classroom hours. It took the mounted police, the pleadings of teachers, the threats of truant officers and two days to get all the strikers back.

A by-product of progressive education and the Wagner Act, student strikes in the U.S. were on the rise last week. Some recent strikes and issues: in Rogersville, Tenn., for better teachers; in Lock Haven, Pa., against corporal punishment; in Chicago, because the boys wanted a football team and the girls wanted to wear slacks; in New York City, against Christmas homework; in Sapulpa, Okla., for a longer vacation. Sapulpa fathers formed a united front to break the strike, applied “woodshed tactics.”