The La Jara chronicle., 1910-09-09
Too What School Shall We
Send Our Boys and Girls?

tlcularly tnOSe llNlnS III lhe 1"
raj districts, the above question,
like Banquo's ghost, will not
down. They want more training
ior their children than the train
ing of the eighth grade, but the
only course open to them is to
send their boys and girls away
to the high school. With the
high school, as now organized,
they are not satisfied.
First, because the high school
prepares for college and not for
making living. With most peo
pie the absorbing question is
the bread and butter question. A
few may retire, but the mass mus
toll on. They know at no time
in the high school course are then
boys and girls much better pre-
pared to earn their bread and
butter than in the common lab
orer with whom they must com
pete. and at the end of the course
they are not really fitted for
anything except to enter college.
Secondly, because there being
few or no electives offered, all
must take the course as prescribed
or withdraw. All must be grounC
through the same mill, it mat
ters not what they expect to be
or do through life. Whether fit
ted by nature to do certain kind
of work does not enter into the
question at all.
Thirdly because training in the
| high school more often turns the
boys and girls away from, rather
than back to life in the open
country. Too often after four
years away from home spent in
the atmosphere of the high school
the boys and girls feel themselves
too good to enter industrial life, =
too proud to do manual labor any
more. The glare of the city
and small clerkship are more
attractive. Sad indeed is the
plight of any nation whose people
c"lrc to look upon industrial life
as degrading.
About five per cent of the
people are in the learned profess
simiS. while ninety-five are in in
/ dustrial pursuits and always must
Lr.
'.'nc professional man needs the
training of the high school, college
an = professional school, and it is
provided for him. The man in
industrial life needs it too, but
cannot always get it. Unfortun-
;tcly millions can not defer their
technical training until after they
have had high school training.
Our system of education, par
ticularly secondary, has been
maintained almost wholly for the
benefit of the five per cent who
go into the learned professions,
while little or nothing has been
done for the ninety-five upon
whom the nation depends. Wheth-
er or not the ninety-five per cent
az" more important than the five
prr cent, they are at least many
times greater. If many times
greater, then it is certainly not
unjust to claim at least equal
chances for preparation.
Under the present minute divi-
sion of labor, and in the absence
of the apprenticeship about the
only place where a boy of high
school grade can learn a complete
trade is in the reform school or
the penitentiary.
Ism t it high time the high
school cease preparing for college
and begin preparing for life?
This article is not meant as an
attack upon high school, but
rather to reflect the feelings of
parents living in rural communi-
ties who wish further training
for their children than that of
the eighth grade.
In the State OF Colorado are
more than 1890 districts filled
with just such people with just
such feelings.
Ii was to meet the needs of
just such people that the State