The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1913-08-12

maintained primarily for the purpoS.
OF training the few WHO were 10 hc
the leaders n civic and political life.
Colleges and universities ookcd anon
the young men who entered their
doors. not as a~ men at al. hut
as the chosen few destined for leader
snip by virtue of their social position
and superior advantages. The higher
institutions, therefore,. bent their ener-
SieS TO training for leadership. and
consequently boasted no little Of the
scholars, the governors and the Dish
ops they made but paid no attention
to the butcher, the baker. the candle
stick maker. If a State university
had made bold to claim that It's
campus vas co-eXtenSive with the
state. public opinion would have de
ciared that institution To be a fit sub
Ject for investigation by a congress
sional committee. The truth is. the
higher institutions did not regard
themselves as great social agencies and
they did not look beyond their walls
TO discover opportunities for social
service. Little did it matter to them
what the outside world was doing or
thinking.
In the Secondary School.
Tire secondary school or academy,
conducted as it was by college-bred
men. was dominated BY the same fun
yin ~ tNSoI II
function. . 1t looked upon itself pri-
marily as a feeder for the college and
supposed it had fulfilled its highest
mission when it had selected the
brightest and best of the youth of the
land and prepared them for higher
training. 1t saw no social relation
ship between itself and the
ity and it did not bother about re-
lating its instruction to the life and
work Of the common man and his
child.
Now, training for leadership is no,
BAD. We shall continue to have lead
ers. and they ought by ali means to be
trained. But no higher institution 81
learning today that is mindful Of its
larger opportunities is intoxicated with
the idea of training for Leadership
only. Preparation for college is not
bad. We must have secondary schools
f that prepare students for college en-
trance and that have a proper regard
s for the demands the colleges MAKE
in the matter of scholarship ant
: standards. But the public secondary
school today that focuses its energie:
: upon the few students of the con
2 munity who wish to go to college. anC
r has no regard for the many who ear
never hope to go, is not meeting it
. larger responsibilities. Nobody il
. particular is to be blamed for tn
al lStO0I I'll IIOlloI VI tI1
dominated the schools of a generation
. ago. 1t simply represents a stag
which our educational thought ha
8 had to pass through in its evolutionar
: progress towards the democratic idea
The progress has been slow. but Their
s Is some consolation in the knoWledg
hat
"The thoughts Of men have widene
- With he nr,ccSc Of tho ClnS
The Social Bctternent View.
il The school today is locke p
n primarily as an institution or agenc
: for social betterment. The demand
e now made upon it are more numeroL
g and more complex than they lave eve
h been before. In response to these de
n mandS the schools are undergoing re
n adjustment and they are getting read
l. for the larger service that they ca
4, lender and will be called upon to rer
n der when the democratic conceptio
e Of education fully works itself out ]
school practice. DR.. Eliot is credite
. with saving that in America our SchO'
H. practice is at least a hundred year
lt behind our best educational theor
Is School men are bending every enere
II today to make the schools, especial
e. the secondary schools, square then
e selves with the demands Of a con
- pick, dynamic ana cOSmopOllen -
c cial order. They Will succeed in II
e end. but it will take time. A fund;
mental change in school practice do
' not and cannot GO pari passu Wi
' hangi conceptions and chanSiI
demands of education.
at With the Connnunity's Life.
- When the State a few years al
began the work Of developing a sy
tenn of rural public high schools ma
-, thought there was TO be develop
- simply a system of college prepar
=, tory schools. But the task undertake
~ is infinitely greater III its possibiliti'
~ The public high school viii not d
Nv regard nor discontinue college prep
RI ratory courses: nor Will i dlSreSa
he the rights and interests of the u
"a. who will never 90 To college. WI
developed it viii be = school o |