The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1912-09-21
coIFAx, PARISH, La. SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 81 1912

girls. Dut tfcst dittHfpto are SCdItcA-
ed; they are not sufficiently general to
make an impression. Yet where ever
these courses have been introduced
hundreds Of pupils have fiocked to them,
and in every case these manual-train-
ing and domestic-science courses have
been overcrowded. But these courses
are again being grated on; they do
not form, as they should, the basis on
which the whole idea of public educa-
ton which is now not to fit boys and
girls for colleges but for practical life
in the worlds should rest They are
made branch of the educational tree,
whereas they should be made the trunk.
This practical idea of practical fitting
of our boys and girls for practical life
should permeate the whole system from
| top to bottom. Even where it is being
introduced it must not be overlooked
that it is principally in the high schools,
and l have already shown that only
seven out of every one hundred boys
and girls ever reach the high school.
In other words, not a particle of practi-
cal education reaches those ninety-three
boys and girls who stop at the elemen-
tary school and who leave all school at
about the age of sixteen.
What is the result in our lives to-day?
See the far reaching results. No mat
ter whether we go into the question of
the prevailing marital unhappiness, of
divorce, or cruelty to children, of the
mortality of children, of the saloon, of
high prices, of the low wages paid to
the average person, or Of the social
evil, the root of any one of these ques-
tions can be traced straight back to
one point: inefficiency; the inefficient
girl who does not know how to run her
home or care for her baby; the ineffi--
cient boy, who, knowing no trade, finds
it either hard or impossible to get lucra-
tive work and becomes discouraged.
Inefficiency is to-day the chief curse of
American life, and it is because the
public school is turning out thousands
of inefficient workers: the girl inefii-
cient for the home; the boy inefficient
for work.
Take just one instance that quote
from Mr.. w. d. Lewis, Principal of
the William Penn High School for girls,
in Philadelphia, and it is an excellent
illustration of thousands of similar
cases:
John Doe, aged twenty-five, and
Mary Roe, aged twenty, fell in love.
John was clerk earning eighteen dol
lars week. Mary was the daughter
Of OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES buyer who earn
ed twenty-five hundred dollars a year.
As the courtship became serious John
began to save money After the usual
hesitation and misgivings on the, part
of Mary's parents the couple was mar
| ried.
Mary had developed no very extrava-
giant notions on her fathers twenty five
hundred a year, and SO exhibited the
usual incompetent, bridish ectasy in
starting life in twenty -dollar-a-month
fiat, furnished with the four hundred
dollars John had saved The young
couple did not figure out expenses much
in detail, but of course they knew that
if Mary did the homework they could
live on what John had been paying for
his board. What comforting delusion
that is of Cupid's, that two can live as
cheaply as one!
John ate the first biscuits, and took
a pepsin tablet; he tackled the first pie
and discovered that he didn't care for
any dessert that night; he choked down
the burnt steak, and ultimately landed
at the free-lunch coulter of the saloon.
The next time he came home and found
the house and Mary's temper in disor-
der he went to the billiard-room for the
evening, and cashed in his pool checks
at the bar for something to take the
place of the meal he could not eat at
home.
Mary found herself shabby after her
trodsseau was worn out. OF course the
little bark was wrecked on the matri-
monial rocks Yet Mary had spent
four years in the public school lit would
be four years in high school, or twelve
years in public schooIs], and at public
expense had passed first-year Latin,
Caesar, Cicero and Virgil, had had
three years of German, three years d
algebra and geometry, two years Of
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