Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-03-15
II nerintendent of Schools. Minneapolis

KNCgN such a calamity is imminent. l ne
WM little gentleman" to whom Doctor Hall
~ refers is generally confined to the story
books while the young barbarian IS often IN
evidence in real life. 1t has not been my expert
that boys not still ready to fight for their
rights nor that teachers discourage that
propensity. l cannot but feel, however, that the
lessons of peace and forbearance are more proper
subjects for instruction in the public schools, and
that while it may not be desirable to make team
sters out of little gentlemen, neither is it deslr-
able to make ''old barbarians out OF young bar
barians" AS matter of fact, the public schools
doing neither of these things but in every city in
the country are accomplishing much in molding boys
and girls into men and women who will be credit
not only TO the public schools but to the nation.
1t is the habit of certain class of critics to blame
the public school system for drought Minnesota,
a wind storm the Atlantic coast, or an eruption
of Vesuvius. But fortunately the great body of
thinking people believe that IN spite OF their faults
and their necessary limitations the public schools
have done splendid work in the mental, moral,
and physical development of the boys and girls,
with so large proportion OF women teachers
l am, however, in accord with the contention of
Doctor Hall that larger number of men should be
employed especially in the high schools,-not for
the purpose of intensifying the barbarian in
stnct but in order that the influence of both men
and women may be brought to bear not only upon
the boys but upon the girls as we'll 1t is my judg-
ment however, that teacher poor man is de-
cidedly inferior to good woman, and the average
man to an excellent woman.
With reference to the necessity of having the
father participate in the home training, there is
difference of opinion, and the lack OF this is
the door of the public schools Every superin-
tendent who is in close touch with conditions in
his city knows how difficult it is to interest
the father in the school work and the home disci-
pine of the children, and how skfuly he shift
the responsibility upon the mother and the teacher.
Of the conditions of to-day vastly differ
from those of forty years ago and the strenuous
life of the average man furnishes the excuse for
this condition of affairs; but is not
Justification as many father has felt when he has
that his indifference has resulted in the
ruin of the boy
The school and the home are working for the
same end, and should cooperate in every possible
way; but there is a work in the education of the
child which peculiarly belongs to the home and
which is the peculiar province of the school,
and the responsibility for the failure of the to
do it's work should not be loaded upon the other.
Concerning ooeducation, especially in the high
schools, there to be decided difference of
opinion among teachers in private conversation;
but in public utteranCes most of them stand by the
system under which they work. | feel, however,
that there increasing tendency toward separa-
ton of the BOYS and girls during the high school
servedly in favor of the plan which usually prevails,
! must admit that l sometimes find myself
doubling its wisdom.
A few years ago, of the larger grade build
ngs of Minneapolis. in which there two rooms
of the grade the seventy, l asked the princ-
pal to try the experiment of placing the boys with
teacher and the girls with another, and this
plan was carried on for year. One experiment of
this kind does not, OF course, establish principle
and yet it is only fair to say that the experiment
in every way decided success, and all my in
quires failed to find either boy girl who was
not pleased with the arrangement. Since that time
have made it point to talk with many high school
boys and girls on the subject, and the responses
have led me to believe that the majority of the
students, both girls and boys, desire separate
schools. A vote taken of senior class in the high
school gave the following result:
For separation BOYS 50 For coeducation, BOYS 81