The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-10-25

physical defects. Then come EFFORTS
to learn the reasons, and then the
house-to- house instruction OF mothers.
and long list OF remedial steps
which are imposing when put together.
but which unfortunately are more apt
TO be found isolated than in clusters.
inquiry and challenge being in the
air, editorials in newspapers and ma
sazines have raised questions in the
minds OF parents, taxpayers, mayors.
etc. Each school man is coming to feel
that until he has explained the situa-
ton OF his schools to his own con-
stituency he is on the defensive. Thus
gradually-no. rapidly-the audience
for school reports is changing from
ones fellow superintendent. or from
the students of education In colleges,
or posterity, to the men and women
who support the schools about which
the superintendent is writing.
Perfunctory school reports will soon
be thing Of the past. Even interest,"
ing school reports are not enough.
They must be enlightening and con-
vincing. To enlighten and to convince
as well as to interest, many superin.
tendents are employing the art which
has given newspapers and magazines
and advertising specialists their enorm,
Gus circulation, namely Illustrations.
In addition to the direct appeal to
the individual and to the mass through
the school report, city superintendents
are making direct bids for civic co.
operation. No one has ever expressed
better the attitude that should pre-
vail among both superintendents and
civic agencies than Superintendent
Maxwell Of New York City In his
school report for 1905:
Il look forward with earnest hope
fuIness to the day when every edu-
cational agency, civic or endowed, will
not feel its duty done until IT con-
tributes freely of it's resources to the
advancement and benefit OF the great
American and Americanizing institu-
ton of free education"
That day; OF course, can never come
until places where laymen can take
hold are suggested by the school men
themselves. School reports must list
needs not yet met, work remaining to
be done.
Hopeful as the outlook is, and sweep.
ing as have been the improvements,
what remains to be done requires con-
slant promotion by some national
agency equipped with funds to make
available to all school men the best
experience Of each.
A part Of this field should be covered
by the United States bureau of edu-
cation. Why should 1t not publish in
monthly digest the counterpart of The
Review Of Reviews in the magazine
world, where school men may find in
brief form the best OF formal utter
ances by their colleagues in all parts
OF the country? why should not state
superintendent render a similar serv-
ice for the school reports within their
own states?
The need would be met by another
national clearing -house with the lati-
tude that thus far has been found pos
sible only by private agencies-some-
thing like the Carnegie foundation for
the advancement Of teaching which
would cover the secondary and primary
schools, public, private, and parochial
Such a foundation could universalize
efficient method and sound idea by
means Of reiteration.
No man can write a proper school
report after June 80 who did not ask
the significant school questions before
the preceding September and for each
successive day during the school year.
Adequate records will, however. fol-
low a desire to know something that
Is not yet known. To stimulate that
desire should be the function Of some
national fund which would be unre-
rnittingly at work distributing amone
school men questions and suggestions
for giving the slowest and the weakest
superintendent the benefit Of the ex-
perience and method of the most eff
ficient.