“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal. See the archives at delawareonline.com.
Feb. 24, 1954, Wilmington Morning News
Communist books banned in Delaware schools
Public school officials have cleared their shelves of publications written by “self-avowed” communists whenever any such writings have been found in the schools, it was revealed yesterday by Dr. Ward I. Miller, superintendent of Delaware public schools.
He told press and radio reports this in answer to a question during a conference in the Administration Building in Wilmington.
Front page of the Wilmington Morning News from Feb. 24, 1954.
Miller said, however, that groups of public school children are free to discuss communism during social study periods where teachers are present to guide the discussion into the overall and broad picture of the communist philosophy and what it means. In this manner, he said, the students are able to absorb a picture of what communism is all about without reading the “slanted” views of some authors who appear to lean toward communism.
He did not identify the authors but said that removal of their books from the school libraries here is the same practice that has been underway in libraries throughout the country.
Objections to certain publications have been made to the Board of Education by civic and patriotic organizations without publicity. …
Local education officials, Dr. Miller explained, believe that school children should be given an opportunity to learn about communism – and all forms of government for that matter – but without receiving only a one-sided picture of these philosophies.
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March 1, 1940, Wilmington Morning News
Visiting the schools – Beacom College update
Harold Warren, principal of the department of penmanship at Beacom College, has submitted a large number of specimens of students’ work to the Zaner-Blozer School of Writing for criticism. All penmanship records at the college have been broken this year under Mr. Warren’s instruction.
Page 26 of the Wilmington Morning News, March 1, 1940.
Doc Viohl’s orchestra will furnish the music for the spring dance of the college in the Hotel DuPont on April 5. Committee appointments will be made next week at a meeting to be conducted by Thomas S. Lodge, faculty adviser of the dance.
J. Marvin Turner has been elected president of the Beacom Y Club. Other officers are: vice president William Doto, secretary John Deeds and treasurer James Broad.
Reach reporter Ben Mace at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: News Journal archives, week of Feb. 23: Books banned in DE schools
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