The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-27

elected without having township,
county or city committee political
or dominant church pull"
Honest, practical friends of publicly
furnished educational advantages
must sternly face these problems and
must solve them, too. If devotion 10
the individuals, the commemorative
progress and elevation is the sincere
purpose of those given absolute con-
troll of them by professionally AMI
philanthropically inspired legislation
is beneath the present publicly taxed
school renaissance, (and l do not
question it, there must be an in
creased study of involved questions
made urgent by modern conditions,
and surcesed agitation and lecturing
on the sole question of increased taxa
ton beyond the point of actual ele
mantary educational essentials to
which all children in this age are now
recognizably Uncertainty entitled.
The established fact that regardless
of the ability and expert capacity OF
the Superintendent and the teachers,
and the efforts Of devoted and sacri-
ficing educational committees, boys
become dolts and nuisances in most
city graded schools after they reach
the seventh or eighth grade, no mat
ter how high the grades go, while the
girls Just flourish like green bay trees
and continue to improve, should cause
teachers or legislators to pause and
consider the cause for 1T. Is 1T that
city reared boy gets taste of employ
ment and pay at odd hours and be-
comes DESTROYS of bucking against the
life tiger 1t would seem so if there
is anything in experience. Having had
occasion in the past twelve months to
give this peculiar phase of high graded
school work special study, knowing
that the fault was not in the teacher,
the superintendent, certainly not will
full in the youth under particular ob-
servation, for he was obedient, indus
trious, energetic in everything save for
the past year al school lncomprehenS1-
bly, idle, so far as desire to excel in
class work or to keep from the dis
grace of being set back in his grade,
when there was no question of his
personal desire of gratifying his
parents or of pleasing his teachers
and superintendent, for all of whOrI
he seemed to have the greatest re-
spect and esteem, overly violating no
rules except those requiring close APP
pIication to his studies. In travelling
about this and other States, | made
it a point to enquire as to conditions
of graded school work among the
boys in the higher grades. l found
that in some cities and towns there
men graduating from the high school
in nearly equal proportion to the girls.
In others there was a singular uni
formity of report that beginning with
the seventh grade the number of
youths diminished, and in two towns,
one in South Carolina, there had not
been for the past two years a single
youth in the graduating class. In
North Carolina city with twenty thous-
,lSN.r lffl IA
system, there was but one male grad
uate in another nearly as large, there
were but two; and 50 it went with
alarming regularity. | discovered in
getting information, that if a Superln-
tendent or some one connected with
the school being enquired about, that
after the information had been oh
tanned without difficulty in casual
way, when the object of it was stated,
there invariably arose the enquirE'.
sometimes courteous. sometimes not,
if l was opposed to higher education?
Professional educational eVangelistS
and enthusiasts under salary need to
have more charity towards sincere
friends of education, not experts aught
pertaining to free school education aX-
cept in advocating every increase of
taxation when asked to do so for pub
lie school improvement, paying taxes
efficiency of the school or the system
for the dearest thing obtainable, the
education and betterment of his own
loinS fruit Coming back to the re-
suit of the enquiries as to the number
of graduates among the boys in the
high graded city school, finding that
many had plenty of boys to graduate,
while others had few or none, ii
proved after much thought over it,,
10 boz fol ~
well, while the industrial and manu-
featuring towns did not
Let those doubling this make en-
quiries for themselves, and they viii
find that manufacturing city of
twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants
with extensively equipped and splen-
didly managed graded schools, will
have fewer high school male gradu-
ates than a mercantile town of five
thousand. What is the cause for this :.
1t cannot be that the mercantile town
patrons are better able to keep the
boy from being IL wage-earner, for the
reverse is true, and can be demon
strated. Is it that parents In cities
where promising, energetic boys are
being constantly sought to fill positions
in factories, Offices railroad, bank or
other clerical employment who do not
need for their sons to stop school, are
less IIlIeUI OH SlNlIS lllCill CuuStlblOitti
advantages than are parents in the
other towns differently situated? That
is not my conclusion by any means.
The high grade department of all tax
supported schools is eminently sue
cessful for girls and the greatest bless
ing to the multitudes who otherwise
would not have become what they are
For boys in many places, as indicated
above, they are failures. Is not boy
on the farm, a boy in a town where
the fathers are not necessarily pursu-
ing the strenuous life, but has his
regular hours at the store, the law
Office the shop or elsewhere, and con-
sequently his regular hours at home
generally all night and all Sunday
greatly impressed with the fathers
personal desires and characteristics
That mans boy has a daily stimulus
of loving companionship or hickory
oil, for the more the father and the
boy 60 together, the father finds to
thrash for and the more the boy finds
to look up to and love and fear. Grad
ed free schools are in their very eS-
sence political. while not necessarily
partisan in administration.
School boards, while composed Of
devoted and admira bly, unseltish lovers
of the advancement of the cause of
education. are properly responsive to