Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1911-09-07

usefui and happy men and women in
the future years. believe that our
trustees and teachers do realize their
accountability in this respect and are
ready and willing TO cooperate in Sc
curing the largest possible school at
tendance this year.
Nor are we to assume that the even
heavier responsibility which rests
upon the parents is not felt by most
of them. 1t is the object of this
meeting to impress upon US all the
Importance of Immediately and efrec-
lively graphing with the inertia and
indifference to which may be traced
the 20 percent. of non-attendance.
A good beginning can be made by
urging with tact and earnestness upon
those parents who may not fully rea-
lize their duty and responsibility, the
| necessity of having their children in
the schools on the first day they are
open this year. No sacrifices they can
make will be of greater satisfaction
or enjoyment to them hereafter than
those that may be entailed by keeping
their children in the schools, from the
first day to the last of the terms. In
these days, there is hardly anyone to
deny or deprecate the untold injury to
the average healthy child in restrain
ing it from school altogether; and to
require or permit Il to be lax in at
tendance is almost as great an injury.
without the mental discipline and
training of the elementary and gram
mar grades, taking eight years, boy
or girl in this age must enter upon the
worlds work with fearful and often
fatal handicap; and the State, which
is civilized society, in justice to the
child and protection to itself, provides
the means for that mental preparation
which is indispensable to its future.
At the best, so far as the average
pupils in the public schools are con
cerned, We can only hope that they
will complete the sixth grade. that
they will learn to read with "a fair de-
gree of facility, to write and to gain
some mastery of the fundamental
branches of education. Most of The
children enrolled do not remain above
six or seven years. Some may be car
ried on the registers longer than is
necessary to do the work of the six
lower grades, and here is where one
of the effects of desultory attendance
and neglect of public school advan-
tages is seen. By regular daily at
tendance and such application as any
ordinary child is capable of, one grade
year should be successfully COM
pleted. The course of study is map
ped out with painful care by experts
and teachers, so as to be easily within
the strength and grasp of the average
pupil, and it is properly based upon
the expectation that the pupils will be
regularly present. Those who are in
daily attendance of course, gain the
benefits of the school, and even
though they may be compelled to end
their school life before passingthrough
all the grammar grades, they will
have laid strong and sure foundation
for their work as breadwinners, and
be prepared to encounter and over
come the difficulties Of self-instruc-
tion and self-development mentally
Therefore, it is Of the highest inn
portance TO the coming generation
that all parents should recognize and
appreciate the wisdom and value of
constant attendance by their children
of school age in the earlier years.
This is the period of real opportunity
to many children who, if they do not
profit then, will, in all likelihood, en-
tirely miss their share of schooling"