The daily sentinel., 1913-04-15

nearly every feature of business and
social activity. Accounts OF bribery,
boodle, graft, corruption, incompe-
tenee and malfeasanee of all sorts
have filled our press and periodicals.
Even the children, grown cynical be-
fore they reach the high school, talk
glibly of all the failings that human
flesh is heir to.
Without doubt, some good has
been accomplished by thus exposing
undesirable conditions, and this has
helped to reconcile us to the mass of
misinformation. misquotation and ex-
aggeration which has inevitably ac-
companied every muckraker's expos
ures. 1t is fact, unfortunate but
true, that the holy determination of
the would-be reformer almost invar-
iably has been accompanied by yell
low sensationalism and a gift for un-
truth He has stopped short with
destructive criticism. Constructive
suggestion has occupied small part
of his attention.
Just now, the Ladies' Home Jour
nal is engaged in a slashing attack
on the public schools Not many
people who know anything of what
the schools are really doing will have
much sympathy with the dyspeptic
diatribes recently appearing in the
Journal. Boards of education, super
intendents, teachers and public are
aware that the public school system
is far from perfect. No institution
is without it's defects. Democracy
itself has never produced perfection.
But because the system has it's faults.
is Miss Frances Lynch, out of her
| ripe" experience, to be believed
when she tells us that the public
school is:
l. Utterly asinine
2. Thoroughly stupid in its meth
od
3. Actually injurious to the
4. Absolutely ineffective in re-
suits.
Do you. reader, accept as truth
statements as the following, the
premises from which Miss Lynch
drew her conclusions?
1. School records show that the
bright, energetic boys leave school
just as soon as they can. Only the
others pemain.
2. The successful men in the
world today owe nothing of their
success to the public schools; they
succeeded in spite of them.
s. The eight years of the child's
! life in school are ordered with the
sole idea of graduating him from
the high school
Do you believe the garbled quota
| tion of DR. Woods Hutchinson that
even the children of the tenements
are better off out of school than in?
Did you ever see or hear of a
school where the hours were uniform
for the children of all ages?
Did you ever meet a teacher who
believed as Miss Lynch declares they
do. that all children are alike?
Do you think that because thirty
California boys could not give bio
graphical sketch of Brer Rabbit and
Pythias that the entire school system
is failure?
Do you believe that the public
schools have forced the girls of your
community or any community into
| lives of prostitution?
| Do you believe with Miss Lynch
that the penitentiaries and jails are
being filled because of the public
school?
The answer to all these questions
of course, is NO; YOU haven't and
don't and never will. Nothing but
your own observation and experience
is needed to refute such statements.
/ They are self-evidently untrue; Ii
bel on the unrewarded services of
thousands of hardheaded board mem
bers and the labor of n half million
teachers. Put this matter TO the
test. Take a day and visit your
nearest school. 1t may be that the
Ladies Home Journal, which saves
! you SO much annually by it's sugges-
| tions of how to make party dresses
| cut of lace curtains and silk umbrel-
las may be correct when it says that
| your expenditure for education is
about the most foolish thing OF
which you are guilty. Make your
visit to the school with an intelli-
gently critical spirit. Take pains to
find whether the critics have been
| telling the truth.
You will not find the hours uni
| fern for all children in any school
in the country. You will find no
| teacher or system that accepts the
ories about the uniform ability of all
children. Don't spend any time look
| ing for them for they do not exist.
| Peradventure you may find a reason
ably uniform course of study, because
1 it has been the theory of the school
that no matter in what work the boy
or girl may eventually engage, they
should be taught to read, to write
and to cipher. 1t has been thought
that they should all be taught spell
ling. Some knowledge of geography
has been thought advisable. You
will hardly quarrel with the instuc-
tion given future citizens in the his