The herald., 1898-03-06
TRUANT SCHOOLS


his annual report to the board of edu-
cation, dwells at some length upon the
difficulties that have arisen from tru-
ancy and the inability to enforce attend
ance upon the public schools. Many
parents are unable to control their child
rem; others are Indifferent to the oppor-
tunities which the children have for edu-
cation, and permit them to stay out of
school on trivial excuses, and in many
cases keep them out to earn living for
themselves and to help support the fam
flies. He quotes at length from DR.. VIII
liam T. Harris, national commissioner
of education, in support of the necessity
of enforcing attendance, and concludes
as follows:
We must have the children in school,
not occasionally but regularly. if they
| are to be educated. I hope the day is
not far distant when we shall have a
| truant school, in which we shall have
| the habitual truants, and thus teach
them, through proper discipline, entire
ly different habits from those which
some seem to be acquiring at the
present time.
In an address before the Illinois
Teachers association, at Springfield,
few weeks ago, f. Benjamin Andrews
of Brown university took an optimistic
survey of the educational field, but con-
tended that if we would make education
the regenerator of society we must have
compulsory attendance in the public
schools. From this proposition, he de-
clared. there is no escape. Politicians
map oppose it on the ground of party ex-
pedency; aliens may assail it through
the blindness of racial prejudces; but
no matter by whom assaled, it is as
true as the law of gravitation. DR.. An
drews insisted that the law should apply
also to the kindergartens, and he would
make the kindergarten lead up to man
ual training. To secure the best results
and reach the highest ideals, he insisted
that politics must be banished from our
| school boards, to the end that we may
! get better superintendent and teachers,
suggestion that has peculiar local sig
nificance just at this time. He also made
strong plea for the teaching of morals;
| contended that more art should be
luncheon should be furnished the child
rem every day, thus protecting them
from the evils of boiling indigestible
| food from their prepared cold luncheons
opd at the Same time keepine their
minds from the distracting scenes wit
messed in the streets while going to and
returning from their homes. He de-
clared that this latter innovation had
proved highly satisfactory in Boston
where it had been given fair test, and
hinted that the expense was merely
nominal.
The truant school is something of a
novelty in the west, and in some portions
of the far east, for that matter. They
have been maintained in Brooklyn fol
more than twenty years, although the
first one in New York city was instituted
only last year. They are described as
cross between a correctional institu-
IlOI anu Il II uuSIdutu SCIlOOl. IIt pupils
are detained in mild captivity, although
volunteers are received, and in Brooklyn
many children are said to travel long
distances to secure the advantages OF
the ungraded classes. The boys who live
in the truant school houses do the house
work, and other light employment in the
line of manual training is provided 70!
the children of both sexes. Not all OF
the inmates of these schools are vicious
or even evil-disposed and their presence
is accounted for by their native dullness
and happiness for study, their mental
shortcomings making them laggards an6
involutary truants, and the ridicule te
| which they are subjected often having
the effect of driving them out of the
| public schools and association with those
more literally endowed. So numerous
is this class that the public school au-
thorties of Brooklyn are considering the
wisdom of establishing in every schoo
| district ungraded classes for the train