The daily sentinel., 1913-04-16

ctuate. But graft onto the regular
high school branches course in
stenography. and you will have a
first-elass product.
1t is not the function of the school
to prepare students for a particular
work. We are not living under a be-
nevolent despotism. Miss Lynch and
her able co-laborers may not always
be with us TO select the trade for
which particular students should be
fitted. We might even go to the
pains of teaching boys a trade which
In a few years would be superseded
by machinery. The truth of the mat
Ter is that we are living in a democ-
racy. II has been our sincere belief
that the school should prepare stu
dents TO choose for themselves their
work in life. We have labored un-
der the impression that, as America
Is the melting pot" of the world,
so the school is the crucible of Amer
lea. We have believed that there
is something more important than
teaching the millions of children
born of foreign parents how to make
"a living. The public schools have
lcavened heterogeneous mass OF a
hundred million people thalf of
whom are foreign born or born of
foreign parents) with the lessons of
patriotism, respect for law and be-
lief in democracy. The economic
value of the child has been in
creased; his standard of living has
been raised; his horizon broadened:
his whole life frightened and his
usefulness to mankind infinitely in
creased. And. mark you, this has
been done whether he goes to college
or not,
Knowing what you do of American
life, do you think that the magnifi-
cent high school buildings now being
erected everywhere in the land would
he voted by the people if the high
school was not iustifying itself?
Never before in our history have the
people been so generous in their ex-
penditure for education. The writ
ers in the Journal should come to
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota or
to many other western states, where
hundred-thousand-dollar high schools
are often approved by the people
without dissenting vote-not mere
ly in large cities, mark you, but in
towns of less than 10000 people.
The strongest defense of the high
school is the fact that the high school
enrolment in this country has dou-
bled in II years. 1t will take more
than the garbled quotations of a few
foreign newspapers, college profess
sors and clergymen to upset the tre-
mendous faith in high school educa-
tion which such fact implies.
Or course, patient reader, you
know that most of the people whom
the Journal quotes to prove that the
public school is failure would cut
off their right arms rather than
make statement that could be tor
tured into meaning such a thing
Nearly all of these quotations are
taken from sources that are warm in
their admiration for American ideals
of education. The Journal has
stretched a dragnet over the entire
photography of educational litera-
tUre. catching in its meshes all the
trifling criticisms. superficial obser-
vations and editorial filters with
which to garnish their latest expert
ment in jaundiced journalism.
No institution in the world more
quickly reflects what the people real
l.! wish than the public school. No
institution is in the hands of more
honest, capable or earnest workers.
The faults of the public school are
being corrected by the constructive
critics among the public and the pro-
fession. The simplest antidote for
the poison distilled by the muckrak-
ing of destructive critics is what you
can see any time by visit to your
nearest school. 1t is worth while for
you to make that visit