The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1909-07-17
Purpose Of the High School

ZION mas protested, 1dle COlleRe mas
raised its standard of requirements
for admission. And yet the very chief
trouble with the public schools Of Yer
mont and of the country at large to-
day is that they are already devoting
more energy and time and money to-
ward fitting less than ten per cent of
their students for college at the ex-
pense of the practical education due
the more tlan ninety per cent that
must earn their living when high
school days are over. Already promi-
nent educators the whole land over
are protesting that the colleges have
forced the high schools to maintain a
standard far beyond the design or out
side tle best usefulness of such pub
lie schools, simply because in their en-
trance requirements they insisted up
on such-and-such qualifications in high
school graduates. And the high
schools have struggled to keep up
with the ever increasing demands be-
cause somehow the idea became more
or less fixed among the educational
fraternity that a high scnool that
could not fit its students for any OF
these great universities was below
par
The question now is, If there is to be
anything like a general raise of en-
trance requirements on the part of the
colleges, will the public schools fool
ishly strive to struggle after them, as
before. or will the public school au-
thorities employ this opportunity to
cut loose from their mistaken idea of
the mission of the high school and be-
gin to frame its curriculum. as it
should have been shaped long ago for
the benefit of that great overwnelm-
ing majority of boys and girls who
find in the high school the only col
lege they will ever attend and who ex-
pect it to help prepare them for the
practical duty of earning their bread
and butter just as soon as they leave
it?
The Messenger contends That the
state is not obliged to prepare its
youth for the higher institutions of
learning beyond the public schools;
it is under no obligation. political or
moral, 10 furnish free cultural educa-
ton TO anybody. It's plain duty ends
when it has done all that is necessary
to fit its future citizens and voters for
the ordinary responsibilities of citi-
zenship, has taught them to read and
write, and to understand elementary
mathematics. know the land they live
in and something of its government
and laws understand something of the
world at large and the relation of
their own country to 1t, and to under
stand the salient featues of the his
tory of America and of the European
civilization of which American history
is a part. Later thought has come to
associate with this course of study
lessons in manual training, domestic
science, and similar branches, PAIL cal
culated to supplant the bookish cul-'
ture, so far as it goes. with practical
training of the faculties for making
the best use of it in actual life and
living.
When the state has done this the
Messenger believes its duty is done.
If here and there an individual in the
masses of students wants an advanc-
ed cultural education and has special
aptitude and fitness for acquiring il,
that student should find a way to the
higher learning or make one for him
self. Then will be invoked the law of
natural selection by which special fit
ness will be stimulated to do its best,
or find that it has hid it's talent in the
earth, while other minds of other cap
acities and other qualifications viii
not be bent out of the path of their
true usefulness through any mistaken
notion on the part of too indulgent
public policy that is bound to give all
the boys the best" no matter what
use or misuse they are going to make
of IL. There is no best or higher
learning, so far as the state is con-
cerned. The ''nighest" schooling any
child can get anywhere is that which
teaches him how best to earn his own
living and make the most successful
use of his natural abilities. All study
beyond that Is simply for intellectual
ornamentation and social delight.
The Messenger believes that the
state will some day realize this idea
in its public school policy and that the
colleges with their persistent sugges-
ton of higher and higher entrance
requirements will not so pervert the
mission and energies of the high
SCHOOLS as they do today. This may
mean that the preparatory schools viii
come into greater activity than ever
in order to bridge over the students
that seek a cultural or professional
education from the public school to
the university Or it may mean that
the universities themselves some day
will come down to the public school
at the entrance end of their course,
no matter now much farther they may
be obliged to extend it at the other
AT all events. whatever the uniyer-
stiles may do for themselves, the duty
of the state toward its own children is
plain The high school should be or
ganized and maintained in the inter-
est of the more than ninety per cent
rather than of the less than ten.-St.