Evening journal., 1910-01-21
Friday, January 81. 1910
EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS.

TAT + all hear great deal about education,
w about the necessity for instructing the
young, for fitting them to be good citizens. In
terest in education in Wilmington, in public
school education, cannot lag so long as DR..
Twitmyer is about, so long as DR.. Shortlidge
men in the Board of Education are strring-so
long as Council has the bills to pay.
|5oc To the average business man however we
!, ,/irmjse that some points, many points in fact,
~ Used by the speaker at the Young Mems
Christian Association meeting the other day,
must have caused a surprise. OF late years we
have been hearing great deal about Germany.
Ne read of Germany in the newspapers and we
see Germany marked on many things in our
stores. Some years ago the Americans did not
hear so much of the realm of the Kaiser.
The speaker at the Y. M. c. A. meeting made
a vivid portrayal of German progress in educa-
tion and he well as others who have studied
the subject thinks that the industrial advance
OF Germany is due to the educational system,
to the elimination of the idle years of the young
TO the fact that there are no young men in that
country who are waiting for Something to turn
out" Perhaps there are few young men in
Germany who fail to appreciate the advantage of
education of technical skill. If they or their
parents fail to realize it, the government steps
in and says they shall do so and they are fore
cd to so to school, just in Delaware we are
saying through law that children shall go to
school And yet to some there may be dis
couraging note in such addresses as that de-
livered by Mr.. Hodge He showed by da-
grams that vast numbers of our young are still
practically uneducated, that a Small percentage
of young men go through the High School, that
great number have little or no education at all
and that they therefore shut off from all op-
portunity to advance in lfe--a dismal future
life has in store for them.
Really there is a great work still to be done
in this country in education. Only FIVE per cent
of our young men beginning life, according to
these statistics, are efficient. The percentage
we think, is too low They may be inefficient
from the school masters point of view, they
may be inefficient according to hard and fast
theoretical lines, but certainly we could not
make the progress we are making with practi-
cally every one inefficient when he starts life
Many a who would be rated as inefficient
according, to the school masters test makes
great success in his life work, according 10 the
worlds standard of success.
But be that as it may our educators have 4
vast field of labor before them. Their work is
just beginning. The encouraging thing about It
all IS that the young men realizing the need
OF better training. Night schools of the Y. NJ
c. a., night school and correspondence schools
are doing supplemental work Men now
have opportunities to improve themselves such
as they never had before.
Is there not in all this lesson to parents, a
lesson TO young boys-that if they do not at
tend school in their youth they harm them
selves they refuse as boys to earn money in
directly? It has been shown that on the aver
age every hour spent in school means an in
crease in the earning capacity of the child when
he starts work.