Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1907-07-13

common school, as the nursery of hope
less mediocrity, and if with the name
you have thought such thought or de-
Vlsed such use, you have torn it away
with treacherous violence from the very
spirit and life of the democracy in which
1t had its birth. 1t is and must be kept
the school of the best nurture in the best
things.
I'VE too often hear the remark that the
teaching and studies of the public schools
dren of families of moderate means, or
OF no means, or the children of the masses
or of certain classes, and that If wealthy
parents want to give their children bet
ter education or one that leads to higher
station they must send them to private
and special schools. All this is the voice
racy at all. 1t is reversion to the no
tions of the ragged school It
conte ehe o5ce the of issI sRr 1T
helpless Children Te ''As accordDg to
conditions of birth and deliberately pur-
poses to rob them of full and free oppor-
tunity. Who knows that the children of
the poor or lowly do not need to study
certain things? Who knows that they
will not make full use of the best instruc-
ton and the best courses of study? Ex-
centage of them make better use than
do the offspring of the mighty.
Rich Need Public Schools
ilS eli VI Tie ITCH ldDOT already
under disabilities enough without being
isolated in private academies and being
inevitably limited for their later acouain-
tanceships in life to those whose scope
of vision and range of action is hedged
about with all the paraphernalia of
yachts and motors and multipleX homes
clubs, assemblies Wallets and innovation
trunks. Both by the limited association
in school and by that of after life these
children of the rich are disabled for the
largest usefulness through their inability
to know the mind of the great body of
the people among whom they are to live
Their separation is also a loss to the com
munity and the creation of a fixed caste
detriment and peril to society.
I'VE surely ought to beware lest we
are doing anything to drive such pupils
from the public schools ar emitting to do
anything, that should hold them. For
tutelage, either through their own
weakness or through lack of
home influences, or through the desire
OF their families to provide such
will always have it's place and mis-
SION but if the private schools and acad-
emies are offering anything else of
method or substance or curriculum that
is better than in the public schools, it be-
hooves us to find it out. What is good
for the cheldren of the well to do is
| the moneyless-unless, indeed, we de-
| liberately propose to use the public
schools for the creation of social strata
instead of their prevention.
Public School for All
1.-THE public school must be made and
kept the school for all without recogni-
ton of classes or conditions, and it must
| shape its work and plan so as to close no
door, but rather open the freest oppor-
| tunity for the best achievement and the
highest advance. The present rigid sys-
| tenn of grades, whose chief excuse has
been economic necessity, must yield to
permit the more rapid advance of gifted
and dligent pupils. The old district
humane Nowadays the machinery of
grades and courses is wonderously per-
| feet, but the school exists for the child
and not for the grades. The place of a
child in reference to the grades Is at any
time to be determined not by what he
has gone through in the past, whether of
pages or classes, but by the work he is
able to go on and do next. Too many
minds and too many wills and ambitions
are dulled by the routine and treadmill
of the grades; and that means bandag-
produce a standard size, Particularly do
| the last years of the grades need to be re-
freshed and readapted, There is too
much threshing of old straw in them;
growing life-interest and the advancing
mental cravings of the pupil.
New Life Needed
after completing six grades a boy is
ready for something new and something
that will lay hold upon his opening in
| terest in the process of life. If you with
| his interest in the school; and If you lose
| that you might as we'll lose him. Your
boy is IL years old or more. Now is the
| time to offer him the opportunities of in
| struction in the industrial arts or the
AGRICULTURAL arts, or in business practice.
| and now is the time to begin IN language
study If any foreign language is ever to
he learned The fact is that our old one
| story ranch house in which we all lived
together happily around a court has been
| gradually transformed, now that the
| city has grown up about IT, into an
| eight-story tenement house with base
ment and roof GARDEN, and we are
shocked to find how much of our time