The morning journal-courier., 1908-02-17
ADVANCED FREE EDUCATION

It was inevitable that with the ever- increasing cost of municipal govern ment. which is manifestly matter of increased taxation, the inquiry should sooner or later be raised whether af- ter all the general community should be taxed for the support of advanced free schools which necessarily limit the. number of scholars by artificial methods. It is not new question in this city. It was under hot discussion when the new High school building was erected and it was supposed that it had been answered for all times. It begins to look, however, as if it might be reopened from new point of view
 Until now the question has been an academic one. As proposition in what may be called morals. it is unfair that any of the children of the city should be excluded from the advanced schools l if they desire to attend them As a counter proposition it has been con- tended that it would be too much of burden to impose upon the public to maintain advanced schools for all who care Ito apply for admission and that in consequence of the general advan- tage of further educating those who have shown exceptional intelligence a system of admission, necessarily ex- elusive, is justifiable. This reasoning has been accepted, and it is likely that if the question was put in that form to the people they would approve But that is not the question as put in new form. It has been discovered in New York, Philadelphia and Indianapolis, and will doubtless be discovered else where now that attention has been called to the fact, that the effect of the advanced school courses has been | to more and more shorten the years of tuition given grammar school pu- l pills who are obliged to go to work the moment the law permits. The great majority of the pupils in the grammar schools of the country have no idea. whether they have the ambition or not of entering the advanced schools. The problems of life weigh too heavi- l fly upon their parents to permit of such a continuance of educational un- dertakings. The result is that the great majority of scholars skip those courses which are designed to com plete ones preparation for advanced school tutelage Or. as the Philadelphia Press sees it. the people of that city, so far from having, as they think they have, twelve-year course, have. for a vast majority of the children. not even an eight-year course, but only a four or ] ive-year course. They pay for d twelve-year course, though nine chil- dren out of ten get only what amounts to four or five-year course.
 In the city of Indianapolis this dis coverv has led the educational author ities there to undertake an equalization of expenditures for school purpose, with the end in view of spending more on the lower grades and less on the i higher grades. According to the News of that city, the reason that prompt cd this acton was that the only edu. cation the vast majority of children get should cost at least as much per capita as is spent on the schools to which So few of the children go" To quote further from the News: "Rut a. inc Philadelphia Press points out. the trouble is. not simply that inc children do not go to the high schools. but hat they do not continue in tie highef grades And this IS so because instruction in those grades is designed rather tc prepare for the high schools to which the children do not go. than for the work of life So the influence of the high schools reaches down into the grades and affects very profound ly the teaching in them. These lower grades are as we are told, only ante rooms to the high school and as the high schools have no charm for the overwhelming majority of the children they refuse to pass through the ante rooms Thus they fail to get all the instruction they ought to have This as we have already said is reviving the question of the high school system from an entirely new point of view and brings if home to thoughtful p4a- pie with increased impressiveness. The mere thought that one of the eonse- quenees of a community undertaking to give to the deserving. intellectuaiiv
 a free education in the schools which