Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-10-09
The State as Educator

The District night schools have opened
<bis.vear with a large attendance and an
excellent outlook for doing better work
than ever before. These classes are niieo
with students of all ages. Elderly men
sit alongside of boys in their teens, all
intent upon acquiring an education. fhe
dominant note in the night schools Is
earnestness The pupils. of whatever
years. are there to work, not to play;
they are there because they find In the
classrooms an opportunity elsewhere de-
MED to them. The elder students are
trying to make up the deficiencies OF
their youth, while the younger ones are
struggling to improve their minds while
they are earning wages, perhaps Tor the
support of widowed mothers or invalid
fathers or orphaned brothers and sisters
In some respects these night classes
are doing better work than even Inc
day schools, with their larger equipment
and their better organization. They are
worthy of the most literal support IN
funds and the services of the best teach
ers They must be regarded as fixed in
stitutions, as a fully established part OF
the public educational system. not as
negligible side ventures.
vide education for the people it should
seek the fullest opportunity to give the
maximum benefit to all. 1t builds school
houses and furnishes them. 1t hires
teachers and trains them. Ii organizes
a costly system which under the old
policy of combining the instruction to the
very young and immature and necessarily
idle is put to only a partial use. 1t
st a Ar1yn
q dead line of age, saying to the student:
You are no longer eligible for instruc-
tion not because YOU know enough, but
because you are too old Go forth and
make use of what you have acquired and
return no more for what YOU lack. Get
that in the hard knocks you will suffer"
Fortunately the new concept or the
states responsibility in its capacity as
educator is broader and more construc-
tive. 1t regards the schoolhouses and
furnishings and the teaching forces as at,
organization for the benefit Of all the
people. For the children it conducts day
classes. and for the adults or the working
children it maintains night classes. 1t
adjusts Its school system 10 the condi-
lions Of the public. This development has
NOT gone far enough. however. The
school plant Is l0le TOO large Il par VI
the time. 1t is in service only COM
paratively few nights of TIE year, and 1t is
entirely useless. night and day, through
out the summer. These buildings and
equipments should be kept at work as
constantly as the courts and the jails-
They should be as continuously in &C
ton as the private enterprises for public
amusement. closed school building
should be rated as a wanton waste OF
opportunity.
Perhaps the day is at hand, through
an enlargement of the public conception
Of the functions Of the state as educator,
when the millions of dollars invested in
every city in school plant will be worked as
economically as are the sums ttat have
gone to the creation of great industrial
establishments. There is reason to hope
for this. The recognition of the night
school as a fixed part OF the system is
q token of a broader view. Some DAY the
business sense of the lawmakers will
awaken and the extravaganza Of spend
ing fortunes In school plants that are
put to only 30 per cent Of use will be
realized and corrected