NEAFC 31st Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

NEW EN’GLAND ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS
American history, English and a. few other subjects; the u~se ~of alcohol and some of
the other subjects are required, but as far as safety education is concerned, it is not
a required subject in the public schools and of course iire prevention is a part of safety
ed.~cation, but let me say this, I know of no community in our state in which the schools
do not carry a gcod fire prevention educational program.
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:CHAIRMAN ERSKINE: Any time you fellows feel you have a question you want
to address to the moderator, speak up.
, THEODORE Gu~TN: I am glad you got Mrs. Curley here. You all know that I
have been giving demonstrations since 1922. I have a questiorr to ask you for the
benefit of the firemen. I went to Newton, Massachusetts, and the headmaster would
give me only twenty minutes of a forty-minute period to, give a forty-minute fire prevention
demonstration. You remember, .Alfred Miner? He got me there.
It was the night before the meeting of the Massachusetts Safety Council but the
next morning I left my_paraphernalia there, and I had a good one. I wanted to shame
the headmaster and I did. He would give me only twenty minutes. He said I was
nothing .but a book seller an.d he says, "you can’t keep the scholars interested; I have
had too many of your type here for agents to sell paraphernalia." That was his idea
of fire prevention demonstration, and I want you to, carry that back to Your superintendents
and headmasters. I am from New Hampshire so I can criticise.
I have a question I would like to ask. Are there specific characteristics to be
considered when choosing firemen as speakers for school assemblies?
MRS. CUR~.EY: I ca.n speak very definitely on that subject. There certainly are
specific things that should be noted in choosing firemen to speak to children in the
public schools. In days gone by the Fire Chief would choose the person to go into the
school that he wanted to get rid of for a few hours, and the firemen would come in
with no. knowledge of what the children had been taught, very untidy in his appearance,
very ungrammatical in his speech and with no knowledge of child psychology. I believe
today that that condition has been greatly improved. I believe that the Chiefs
of today took at their firemen and choose them’ with perhaps some of these things in
mind. ~Does this man havechildren of his o.wn? Will he be interested -,in talking to a
group of child:ren and understand .the psycholggy of small children? Is he, neat and
tidy in dress? Will he present a good appearance before these children? Can he speak
grammatically?
Now I don’t mean to criticise anybody for poor grammar. That isn’t an index
of how much a person kr~ow; if~ he splits a,n iinfinitive.; ,That is no index of his ability
but if that man is going to stand up, particularly befgre junior high and senior high
children--and they are not generous of ~0eople who spe.ak ungrammatically, n~o. matter
how much they may know--I feel very strongly that these men should be handpicked
very carefully to do the job in the public schools. (Applause.)
LIEUT. L. N. CLARK, Newton: I would like to correct the:~i~ua~ion that the
gentleman here has brought up. We have started: a very good system of ~re prevention
education in schools. We usually take one school at a time. We take each class by
itself, show them a set of demonstrations and give them a chance to ask any questions
regarding demonstration and the ~re department. In that way you can talk to each
grade level that you find.
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