The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-05-27
ENDING THE SCHOOL YEAR.

have the annual school commence
ments, when large numbers of gradu
ates finish their school course in the
higher institutions of learning, and
where yet larger numbers graduate in
the lower schools, the great proportion
of these graduates being from the
grade schools, and of pupils who have
DO expectation of going any further in
the way of school attendance
The fact that the most Of the pupils
are ceasing their school attendance
with their grade graduations and a
good many stopping short even of the
eighth grade, lends great force to the
recent educational propaganda which
demands more Of the grade schools
than ever before. Under the old sys.
tenn where the theory was that the
schools were properly and almost ex-
clusrvely for the preparation of ap-
plicants for higher education in high
schools, academies, seminares, col
leges, and universities, there was little
attempt made to do anything. aside
from preparatory studies with h view
TO entrance examinations for those
higher schools for the pupils in the
grade schools. These were instructed
so far as the grade instructions went,
and then dropped out with but very
little advantage from their school at
tendance.
Happily there have been for a good
many years determined efforts to cor
rect this and to give the graduates of
the grade schools the benefit Of as
much practical instruction as could
be impaired to them. Still more hap
PLY there is no cessation, but rather
an increase, in the effort to make
the grade schools the great popular
schools for all the children of the
United States. When we see that
scarcely more than one and almost
universally not more than two in the
hundred of the grade pupils go any
further in school instruction, and
when we see further that not more
than one-tenth of the high school
graduates go into college or uni.
versity, the Importance of making the
high schools, but more especially the
grade schools, the great schools of in
struction, becomes evident.
Very much has been done in recent
years by way Of giving Importance
and extension to the instruction in the
grade schools. We are glad to see that
these efforts are yielding good fruits,
and that they are persisted in; asd
hope that they will be pushed until the
grade schools turn out pupils thor
oughly in touch with their surround.
ings, and able to 90 into the business
and other walks of life on ad-
vantageous terms.
In the past, the graduate Of the
schools of whatever grade has ended
his school course thoroughly unpre-
pared to get into touch with the life
about him so far as the school in.
structlon has gone. Whatever has
tended to put the pupil in contact with
the daily life of his or her community
has been received at home or on the
outside, not in the schools. The cor
rection of this lack is being made with
perhaps AS much rapidity as is pos.
sible, and we hope to see that the
efforts in this direction will more and
more prevail until the graduate Of
the grade schools who wishes to 20 no
further will step right into his life
work strengthened and supported by
the instruction that he has received IN
the schools with special regard TO the
life work in which he is to engage.
The schools are the great training
place Of the masses Of the American
people. They should be made to as
thorough an extent as possible the
practice ground from which the pupils
will step with as little break as pos
sible from the routine of their school
work right into the activities of life.
When that is done, then the schools
Will have served their Dgrfspf purnnga