Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-08-29
SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.
Santa Fe City Schools Should be More
Largely Attended-Go Reasons

Thirty or forty years ago people
fight the battles of life with a very lit
tie education. But now times have
changed. The multiplicity of modern
inventions and the new mode of carry
ing on business demand an educated
and cultured mind. And that individual,
city or nation that indifferently passes
by or carelessly neglects the culture
which a good school education gives is
just so surely going to be left behind in
the race of life.
Sometimes a boy or young man is
heard to say; my father had no edu-
cation, and he got along all right" Such
statements may be very rue concern
ing our fathers, but it will not be true
concerning our children, as times have
wonderfully changed since our fathers
were children. Too many have thought
that they could go through life with but
little or no education, and what has
been filled with paupers, our peniten-
tiaries have been filled with criminals,
and our country has been overrun with
tramps. Want and squalor have shown
their g1imy visages in too many homes
of this land of freedom and plenty be-
cause the inmates preferred inactivity
of body and mind to lively exertion.
Our lawmakers have learned that ed
ucation is cheaper to the state than ig-
norance, hence the provisions for free
schools. Now that we have good pri-
vate schools, good church schools, and
good public schools, what excuse is
there for children here in Santa Fe
growing up in comparative ignorance?
The line between the illiterate and those
who have an ordinary school education
is becoming more and more distinctly
/ drawn every year by business men in
the active business affairs of life. The
office boy or the house girl who can
read, write and count well are very
much preferred to those who cannot do
these things well.
1t is to be hoped that parents and
friends of education who realize these
things to be true will not only see that
| their own children make the most out of
4 the educational facilities offered them,
f but that they will talk to their neigh
bors and their neighbors' children who
do not seem to appreciate the advan-
tages of a good education, and urge
them to attend some school and to at
tend regularly. Irregular attendance is
next to no attendance at all. The irreg-
ular ones not only do no good for them
selves, but they actually hinder those
who do attend regularly, and give the
teacher much unnecessary trouble. Par
ents who say that they will send their
children to school when they have moth
ing else for them to do, and. when the
keep their children at home all the time,
as they will do no good for themselves
and will do much harm to others.
There are exceptions to most rules
and to most general statements, but
how many parents are there in this city
whose children cannot start some place
to school as soon as those schools open
which they wish to attend? I am not
urging children to attend the public
schools, but I am urging them to attend
some school, either private, church or
public.
The statistics of last year show a
school census of nearly 1000 pupils of
school age. Did one-half of these ait
tend school regularly during the past
year? l do not know how many attend
ed private or church schools, but I do
know that the records show hat the
average daily attendance of the public
schools during the past year was only
1855, so if one-half of the children of
the city were in regular attendance, the
private and church schools had quite
a good attendance.
Again, l say, ignorance is more x
pensive to the city than intelligence,
and the way tt do away with ignorance
and to foster intelligence is for parents
to see that their children are ready to
start to school the first day and to go
regularly while they do go, that they
may form a love for their teachers and
a liking for their studies.
J. A. WOOD, Superintendent.