Omaha daily bee., 1898-08-09
WOMAN'S WORK FOR SCHOOLS
Great Field for Activity Without Intrusion
Into Politics.
HOW TO MAKE WoMANS INFLUENCE COUNT
iimeiy suggestions for Promoting
IA Educational Advancement of
the child In the Home and
In the Club.

In discussions Of public education there
are three considerations Of grave conse.
quence which must not be overlooked.
writes Freeman Palmer in the Independent.
tn first Is the imperative need of i'm
provements in our schools in order to adapt
them to the rapidly changing conditions OF
life Never before have the schools been
more sharply criticised both by their friends
and foes.
People are asking whether we are get
ting our full return for the one hundred
and ninety millions we are spending an
nuslly; the experts are keenly at work on
new methods and questions of reorganiza-
ton; but II the public schools are to ac-
complish for the next generation the funda-
mental work we may fairly demand OF
them the decision of these and many other
weighty matters must not be left solely to
the teachers and officers of administration.
Doing their best, they must largely fail
without the steady sympathy and intelli-
gent cooperation of the homes. Therefore
the second point must be continually en-
phasized-that with us in this country none
of the much-needed improvements can be
made in education except through the
power of an aroused and enlightened pub
lie opinion. For our schools as for every
other interest of our higher life, the best
results are prevented because the commu-
nifty at large fails to perceive the need and
the opportunity. Citizens are too often duly
passive or content with the old, the COM
monplace, the ugly, the poor, instead Of
asking constantly for the best possible of
everything for their children We must ele-
vate public sentiment before we can give the
schools the new opportunities, already the
happy inheritance of the more active
minded communities. Politics in the city
nAI Ia H. - f-G 4 4
foes of education.
But again, there remains one further
consideration. Women compose at least
half and in many parts of the country much
more than half of the community. In many
sections they have had, on the average, a
more generous education than the men.
They are, moreover, the only leisure class
in this country, and must, therefore,, I'M
dertake much of the unremunerated work
Of society, in education, in charity, in re-
form. They are in close and constant con-
tact with the growing children and know,
or may know. the conditions of school life
more intimately than anyone else can know
them. They are now we'll organized in
clubs and societies, so that their convic-
lions, II carefully formed, can speedily be
made effective upon public sentiment and
influential in the management of schools.
Granting. then, that in city and in coun-
try our schools still leave much to be de-
sired, and that we are in public peril be-
cause of their connection with local pol
itics, because of their defects in organiza-
ton. and the waste that follows in its
train; granting, further, that nothing funda-
mental and effective can be done except
through public demand and support and that
the women of the nation, through their
greater leisure and closer association with
.l-I- --.g- @-l tL-,r IN
stinct, are the ones especially qualified to
influence the general sentiment, what is it
that women can do to aid the public schools:
A Field for Study.
The first thing that women can do is to
study the schools. No woman should fail
to have an intelligent acquaintance with
the schools of her neighberhood, whether
she has children in them or not. All wo-
men should feel that they fail in patriotism
il they fail here. They are not good citi-
zens unless they definitely assist some
work of education. To train the young has
always been the main business of women
not only in the ho-.N, but in the larger
home, the state. This is now understood
as never before and the General Federation
OF Women's clubs has made education and
the study of its problems its chief Interest
for years.
If this larger knowledge is gained there
will come with it friendliness and comrade'
ship with the teachers. Mothers Will bt
astonished to learn how tremendous is thu
influence of a teacher, hitherto unknown
upon the whole life of their child. Mrs
Mary A. Livermore lately told OF her littl'
grandchild coming to her with a question
listening to her answer, and then gravel!
saying: We'll ~Grandmamma, / Will asl
Miss Brown tomorrow If what you say |
true" Miss Brown is a little 1S-year-olt
teacher in a primary school! For the frs
time in history a nation is entrusting tn
education of a majority of its citizens t
women; and women in the homes mus
stand close to the teachers under who's
abiding influence the children of a free PEG
pie are spending the most of their child
hood and youth. The public education as
sociations now being formed are dom
much, but nothing better than In bringing
teachers and parents into frequent an
friendly intercourse and discussion of all tn
interests of the children.
When the intelligent women of any com
munity take an active interest In the school
and are in close relation with the teacher
they will certainly wish to do somethin
for them. They will find certain defnlt
needs, some more pressing in one place
Others in another, but in general too lo'
ideals and standards, VI these neeus non
is more urgent than the Improvement c
the sanitary conditions of the school build
ings.
Women must carry over their ideas {
good housekeeping into the public home
of their children. They must insis
that the buildings which are the homes {
l6, 900, 900 children and 400, 900 teachers u
days in the year, shall be so construete
and furnished as to build up and not destrS
health. Few public school buildings al
even clean by modern standards OF hygien'
which must rule, especially in city cond'
tions. where more than one-third OF a
our people live. In 1892, In Boston, IL
average loss OF time for sickness mon
wage earners was twenty-four days in u
year: in Massachusetts, at large seventee
days. The estimated loss from sickne'
among wage earners was S15, OOO,O 900 and II
the whole population $40, 100000. II WI
estimated that a loss of more than S3'oOo'o
among the working people was preyentab
by good sanitation. Yet Massachuset
gives s.O4 years of 200 days each OF scho
life to all its children. Evidently WON,
can occupy themselves with no more Ell
cient and far-reaching charity than the be
tering of the health conditions of the scho
children emitting nothing that can IN