Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1906-12-05

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the school shall have such help from the
its own great duties.
1t is no far time, my friends, though we
would fain have it otherwise, to that day
when the last lesson of the school shall
have been. taught, when the last loving
admonition of the home shall have been
given and the feet which in childhood
have run to mothers call or the teachers
summons must obey that louder more in
sistant call to the work that the world
has waiting. OF that day the poet has
sung beautifully in these words:
The little Road says go:
The little House says stay.
| And oh, it's bonny here at home,
But must go away.
| The little Road, like me,
Would seek, and turn. and know
| And forth must, to know the things
The little Road would show.
| And go must, my dear,
| And journey while may,
Though heart be sore for the little House
That had no word but stay.
Maybe, no other way
Your child could ever know
Why little House would have you stay
When the little Road says. 60"
And when the ambition of youth must
| answ the summons of the little road,
may it in that day be grandiy, sweetly
true that the spirit of the little house
| shall go on into the future that beckons.
II so it is to be, then must the little house,
which is the home, through every day of
its rich opportunity teach those lessons
of which manhood and womanhood stand
in so great a need.
And not only in these matters but IN GER
tain material ones as well, the home needs
to know what the school is, what it means
to be, aud what it aims to do; and in its
plans and ambitions afford sympathetic
CO. operation and helpful guidance. sup
pose it would be bit of surprising in
formation to many parents here that there
go out of the homes of Maine scores OF
boys and girls into school conditions as
deplorably depressing and harmful as
they are needlessly so.
How many boys and girls, do you think,
who have about their own homes we'll
kept and carefully graded lawns, go to
school whose only yard is rocky, un-
slightly, unkempt pasturee How many go
from homes where conditions of light and
heat and ventilation are all the require
ments of health may demand, into schools
where none of these matters have been
taken into consideration; how many are
carefully shielded in their homes from
all that is impure, indecent and obscene,
and yet are sent to schools whose out
buildings present grossest offense to the
innocent eyes of childhood? How many
are forced to spend large part of their
waxing hours in iil-adiusted and i'll made
seats and desks that cramp and deforme
How many go from homes of cultivated
taste into schoolrooms so devoid of any
refining and uplifting conditions that
they turn aside rather than aid the ends
of education.
And whether the children go from these
average homes of the common people or
whether from the home of poverty and
baroness, it may be of degradation, it all
amounts to the same thing, which is that
the State cannot afford to allow any of its
children to attend school in anything less
than decent, comfortable, sanitary, rea-
sonably equipped schools, and / believe
that nowhere in this good State of ours is
community SO poor that anything less
needs be accepted.
In the furtherance of these au-important
ends-more sanitary buildings, better
equipment of the schools, more beautiful
school yards, more tasteful schoolrooms.
more books, more pictures, more of all
those things which make glad the hearts
of children-the home can be of uu-
measurable service. Indeed the home
has more than service which it may per-
form, it has an absolute duty which it
must perform, and that is to follow the
child into the school to see whether there
are found all the tools OF education that
are required for his best training and. IL
they are not there, to lend a hand in get
ting them.
Believe me, my friends, there still are
schools in Maine to be numbered, not by
scores but rather by the hundred. which
would be far better housed and equipped
il the homes Of their communities were
not so deadly spathetic to these all-im-
portant things. And in the physical needs
OF the individual child the home mag
serve vastly the interests of the school.
Recently there has been going the rounds
of the press the statement that fifty
thousand children in New York city go
breakfastless to school each day. hap
pened recently to be present when we'll
known worker among New York children
was asked to verify the statement. His
reply was, 81 do not know, have no
figures, but of this much am certain, four
times that number go daily to school with
what is quite as bad as no nourishment
and that is improper nourishmentn
How many of our childrt n then go daily
to school struggling against the disad-
vantages of improper food? How many
are there whose clothing is such as to re-
tard growth and development If maybe to