The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1909-07-09
THE COMPLAINING PEDAGoGuEs

i"' '""Ndi'lS VINO are assembled
National convention in Denver arc not
dong themselves or their profession
Justice in the wholesale radicaiism and
denunclations in which the teachers
there assembled are nduleing. IL does
no good to denounce the farmers as
lght wads. with pocketbooks
"gluod shut and TO dcnounce the
danger of little education. - II
amounts to nothing 10 Jump onto the
mass of the community for lis failure
to respond altogether 10 he demands
Of The teachers, And il is idle 10 make
an outcrv against tho use Of the word
professor in other walks of life than
as applied To educators, for If is tbe
educators themselves that have taupht
1 the community the use of this word
and 1T is they who have given TO the
community that ''little education -
which these teachers now stand up TO
revile.
There are two prominent facts that
seem to be ignored by these teachers.
The first is that the communities all
over the United States are taxing them
selves enormously for the maintenance
of public schools. They are bearing
about all the burden they can Of this
kind. and should be praised. rather than
! blamed, for what they are doing The
school taxes total a very large percent
age of the total taxation everywhere,
and it is quite true that a good many
thinking people arc asking themselves
whether the public. and particularly the
taxpayer, gets the full return from
the schools that they do in other walks
of public employment So many fads
are introduced, so much insistcncc is
made upon nor. essentials, so many loose
ends are allowed TO remain loose, that
very serious questions are raised from
time 10 time in the educational journals
| themselves. in the magazines, and IN
books, whether the public is getting the
value that it should get for the money
it raises for public education.
Another very serious question that
is frequently raised is whether our
course Of instruction is not, for the
most part, badly framed and i'll suited
10 our conditions. The public school
system is growth, Naturally it has
grown along the lines upon which it
was founded. Those lines were all dl-
rectcd toward the college and the uni
vcrsity. The popular or home schools
were for generations openly and avow
edly merely preparatory schools for the
Nd
not supposed TO be of any special value
in and Of themselves, nor were they
for many generations supposed TO be
attended by the children of the popu
lace. In America. however, we have
built up system Of public schools
where, very Justly and rightly and nat
urally, it was expected that all the
children should attend All have the
right to attend, and have had that
right al the time. And certainly
whore public taxation maintains the
schools there can be no question but
that all the children of school age are
entitled to attend. And it is their
right to receive in such schools the in
struction that will do them the most
good, and best fit them for the life
which they will begin when their
schooling is over. Do they get il
This Is the very serious question. and
VIC think, for the most part, that it
must be answered to a large extent in
the negative. For the schools have not
got out of their medieval rut. They
still point towards the college and the
university, Just as they did at first, al
though it is well known that not more
than one in about four hundred of all
the public school pupils ever 90 to
| university. And yet the whole school
curriculum appears to be framed 10 fhe
getting of that one out Of four hun
dred into the college or the university.
The large mass of the pupils never get
beyond the eighth grade A great per-
ccntage do not even get through the
eighth grade. The high school takes
! perhaps one III twenty But not half
of these continue through the high
school 10 graduation; and after get
ting through the high school but small
proportion continue on TO the college
and university. although their whole
schooling has been directed towards
! that one aim,
Some Of the best educators in the
country have come out nronouncedly in
favor Of radical revision Of our
school system and of the instruction TO
be impaired in the schools. Inasmuch
as but q small proportion Of the pupils
I get beyond the grades, it has been
urged that all fads be dropped and that
practical instruction, adapted TO the
uses and wants Of the masses. should
be impaired in the grade schools, let
ting the few who wish to 90 on be
vond have such opportunities as are
possible 20 do so. maintaining the high
schools as the doors to the colleges and
universities, but not adapting every
phase Of education 10 that one end. 1t
seems to MS, and IT certainly rs grow
ing idea throughout the United States