Daily Kennebec journal., 1914-01-16
ARTICLE VI.

l. What are the reasons which call
for a new building?
10. Provision for Junior High
school.
a. The one stricking defect of our
public school system has been the
sharp line of demarkation between the
Grammar grades and the High school.
BY the intermingling of classes and
grades in the same building and often
under the same instructor, there is
preserved sense of unity and vital re-
lationship throughout all the lower
grades.
b. But the Grammar grades have
been so completely cut off from all
knowledge and relationships with the
High school work as to make the aims
and work of that institution another
field of life. This has led far too often
In the mind Of parent and pupil alike
to that totally wrong conception that
the Grammar school is the goal and
limit of our free school life. Thus very
large percentages of pupils have never
thought of going any farther, and
therefore have never cultivated the
ambition or done the work which
would make the High school courses a
pleasure and profit to them.
C. Through years of patient agita-
ton we have succeeded here in Gardi-
ner in greatly reducing this percent
age of losses, so far at least as enter
ing and trying the High school courses
is concerned. But the break is still
sharp and abrupt at this point, contin-
uing to constitute the most glaring
fault of our educational system.
d. We must now seek to unity all
grades of study, regarding the High
school years as simply advancing
grades of our public school system
We must more and more centralize
the hopes and ambitions, and therefore
the more faithful work of our pupils
around the High school graduation as
the least preparation for life's strug
giles and enjoyments. Pupils and pa
rents must come to feel toward the
High school in the same way in which
Primary and intermediate grades re-
gard the Grammar school Such an at
tituGe would not merely lessen the
immediate losses, but far more import
ant still, would prevent that enor-
nous loss which now takes place in the
first two years of the High school
work.
e. These conceptions can most of
all be realized by binding the last year
of the Grammar school vitality to the
| High school work. Pupils of this grade
should therefore pursue their studies
in the same building with the High
school students. They should become
accustomed to High school surround
ings They should get acquainted with
High school teachers, to small sex-
tent at least brought under their in
struction, and be made familiar with
the methods of work and enriched op-
portunities which the High school
courses provide.
f. For this special reason, then, to
correct an evil Of such large and last
ing proportions, we need q new High
school building. 1t must contain rooms
and opportunities which are not merely
exacted by its own special require
ments. but which shall adequately pro-
vide for these urgent requirements OF
Junior High school.
H. A central building for common
instruction.
a. The fundamental conception OF
what constitutes a real education has
been undergoing great changes in the
last two decades. We have become
certain that the primary object is not
to inform but to discipline the mind;
not to pour information in, but to
awaken and call forth growing powers;
not to prepare man for intellectual en-
joyments, but to guide and develop his
character; not to fit him for the selfish
pleasures of life, but for unselfish SER
vice in the world.