Leidsch Dagblad
- KATWIJK IN MOURNING.
- NO TRIAL OF THE DALTON SYSTEM.
- ASPHALT ROADS.
The Leidsch Dagblad of 11 October 1926 reported grief in Katwijk aan Zee: after weeks of mild, summery autumn weather, a sudden south-westerly storm on Saturday had sunk the fishing vessel K.W. 152 with all hands, and the report dwelt on the fear among fishermen's wives and mothers. In Leiden, the Burgomaster and Aldermen refused a school head's request to run a Dalton Plan class, resting their refusal on advice from the school inspector, the local school committee and the heads of the public primary schools. The page also carried a report on a thank-you evening for those who had taken part in the 3 October festivities and a description of Topeka asphalt roads, praised as quiet, dust-free and cheap to maintain.
Translation
KATWIJK IN MOURNING.
Towards the end of the English mining dispute. KATWIJK IN MOURNING. THE K.W. 152 LOST WITH ALL HANDS. We are informed from Katwijk aan Zee: After some weeks of splendid, summery autumn weather, a violent storm suddenly blew up from the south-west on Saturday, filling many a heart with fear. This fear was especially great among the fishermen's wives, and many a wife and mother clutched her heart as a [?]
NO TRIAL OF THE DALTON SYSTEM.
… head of the school at Duivenbodestraat B, in September of last year asked the Burgomaster and Aldermen of our municipality for permission to conduct an experiment with the Dalton system with his class. On 8 October last, Mr. Van Sch. received the following reply from the Burgomaster and Aldermen: "We hereby inform you that, having read the advice obtained on this matter from the Inspector of Primary Education, the Local School Committee, and the heads and school meetings of the public primary schools, after ample consideration we do not find ourselves at liberty to grant you permission to form a so-called Dalton class with your pupils."
HONORARY EVENING OF THE 3 OCTOBER ASSOCIATION.
In the completely filled large Stadszaal, the honorary evening was held on Saturday evening, offered by the board of the 3 October Association to all those who had contributed in any way to the festivities of 4 October last. There, once again, were gathered the brave knights and noble damsels of the open-air play and the procession, but now stripped of their proud finery and once again …
ASPHALT ROADS.
… laid. These roads consist of an intermediate layer of asphalt concrete topped by a wearing course of Topeka, resting on a foundation of sufficient strength. Topeka pavement, which has long been made in England and America, has in recent years been applied on an extensive scale in the Netherlands, for improving both town streets and country roads. Highly noiseless and dust-free, it provides a handsome, even road surface that meets the demands of modern fast and heavy traffic, while it has proved to be a durable paving material with very low maintenance costs.
Context
Katwijk's earlier losses of whole crews
The headline phrase "met man en muis vergaan", lost with all hands, described a fate that Katwijk families had met repeatedly before 1926. Family accounts published on a Katwijk heritage site record that the sail lugger KW 23 "Admiraal Piet Hein" struck a mine on 19 February 1918 and that everyone aboard died. The same collection tells of the lugger KW 108, lost with all hands on a young crewman's first voyage, and of the small coastal boat KW 212, which capsized off Zandvoort in an unexpected gust, killing all three people aboard. The KW 23 was lost to a wartime mine, whereas the K.W. 152 went down in a peacetime storm. The dread the newspaper describes among wives and mothers on that Saturday belonged to a town where the loss of an entire crew was a familiar event. The selected text breaks off before it names the crew or gives their number.
What families could claim when a ship vanished
Support for the families of drowned Katwijk fishermen was limited and conditional. An account of the 1918 loss of the KW 23 notes that an emergency fund for widows and orphans existed at the time, but that a payment from it required proof that the husband had actually died. Another Katwijk family's account says that, because the crew was missing, the family could not claim on the Zeerisicofonds, the sea-risk fund, since no declaration of death could be submitted, and that apart from a small allowance from the deacons of the Dutch Reformed Church it had no income. A ship lost with all hands at sea could therefore leave a household both without its breadwinner and without the paperwork that relief required. These cases predate the 1926 storm, and neither the selected text of the report nor the sources available here say what relief the K.W. 152 families received.
What the Leiden head teacher wanted to try
The Dalton Plan, devised by the American educator Helen Parkhurst, replaced class teaching with individual work. Pupils worked at their own pace and received individual help from the teacher when necessary; there was no formal class instruction, and pupils drew up their own timetables and were responsible for finishing their assignments. A "Dalton class" at the Duivenbodestraat school would therefore have meant dropping whole-class lessons for one group inside a municipal primary school. The reply from the Burgomaster and Aldermen, as quoted by the paper, gives no reasons of its own. It grounds the refusal in the advice of the Inspector of Primary Education, the Local School Committee, and the heads and school meetings of the public primary schools, and says only that after ample consideration the Burgomaster and Aldermen found no liberty to grant permission.
A teaching method spreading in the early 1920s
The Leiden request came only a few years after the Dalton Plan reached educators outside the United States. In 1920 the Times Educational Supplement in Britain published an article describing in detail how the Plan worked, and Parkhurst's book Education on the Dalton Plan appeared in 1922. Her later reputation shows how far the method travelled: schools in the Netherlands, England, Australia and Japan adopted it, and Parkhurst was decorated by the Queen of Italy, the Empress of Japan and the Queen of the Netherlands, although the source gives no date for these honours. When Leiden's Burgomaster and Aldermen turned down the Duivenbodestraat experiment in October 1926, the method had been described in detail in the British press for only six years.
Original
KATWIJK IN ROUW.
Naar het einde van het Engelsche mijnconflict. KATWIJK IN ROUW. DE K. W. 152 MET MAN EN MUIS VERGAAN. Men meldt ons uit Katwijk-aan-Zee: Na eenige weken van prachtig zomersch herfstweder, stak er Zaterdag plotseling een hevige storm op uit het Zuid-Westen, die menig hart met angst vervulde. Vooral onder de vrouwen der visschers was deze angst groot en menige vrouw en moeder hield zich het hart vast als een [?]
GEEN PROEF VOLGENS HET DALTON-SYSTEEM.
hoofd der school Duivenbodestraat B, in September van het vorige jaar aan B. en W. onze gemeente verzocht met zijn klas een proef te mogen nemen met het Daltonsysteem. Dato 8 October j. l. heeft de heer Van Sch. van B. en W. het volgende antwoord ontvangen: Bij dezen deelen wij u mede, dat wij, gelezen de ter zake ingewonnen adviezen van den Inspecteur van het Lager Onderwijs, de Plaatselijke Schoolcommissie, de hoofden en schoolvergaderingen der openbare lagere scholen, na ampele overweging geen vrijheid vinden u verlof te verleenen om met uwe leerlingen een zoogenaamde Dalton-klasse te vormen. EERE-AVOND 3-OCTOBER-VEREENIGING. In de geheel gevulde groote Stadszaal had Zaterdagavond de eere-avond plaats vanwege het bestuur der 3-October-Vereeniging aangeboden aan al degenen, die bij de feestelijkheden op 4 October j. l. op eenigerlei wijze hun medewerking hadden verleend. Daar waren weer te zamen de dappere ridders en edele jonkvrouwen van het openlucht-spel en den optocht, doch thans ontdaan van hun fieren tooi en wederom afge -
ASFALT-WEGEN.
gen aangelegd. Deze wegen bestaan uit een tusschenlaag van asfaltbeton waarop een deklaag van Topeka welke rusten op een fundeering van voldoende sterkte. Het Popeka pavement dat reeds lang in Engeland en Amerika gemaakt is wordt de laatste jaren op uitgebreide schaal in Nederland toegepast zoowel tot verbetering van stadsstraten als van buitenwegen. In hooge mate geruischloos en stofvrij levert het een mooi, gelijkmatig wegvlak, dat voldoet aan de eischen welke het moderne snelle zware verkeer stelt terwijl het bij zeer geringe onderhoudskosten een duurzaam verhardingsmateriaal is gebleken.
Source: Source: Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken (leiden.courant.nu)