Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1914-01-07
SCHOOL NEWS

are Our PUBIC SCHOOLS a
Failure 20
Probably at no time have the public
schools been criticised so universally
and 90 indiscriminately as at the
present. Very much of this criticism
is bad because it is unsound, untrue,
and while objecting to the existing,
has nothing better to substitute. All
Of it is unfortunate because it lowers
the value of school education in the
minds of unthinking people who need
the school the most. It is not at all
unusual to find articles in any paper
or magazine today bearing the title Of
this paragraph. The following dis.
cussion which answers the question
negatively, written by J. W. Red
way, is an extract from the Western
Teacher" for December.
Il take New York City as an
example. Knocking New York schools
is quite the customary habit. and the
small army of efficiency experts can
find nothing good about them.
Three quarters of million pupils
attend them and about twenty
thousand teachers constitute the
teaching staff. Not far from one
third of the enrolment consists of
pupils of foreign birth or are the
children of foreign born parents.
At the present time the parents are
mainly Italians, Russian Jews.
SyIians, Poles, and Greeks They
are the unskilled laborers aud the
vital energy of the sweat shops So
far as the parents are concerned the
problem is simple. They will live a
while, herded as sheep are herded ,
then they die. But their children
are the greatest problem on earth
today. Let us see the work of the
New York schools ON them, by a
study of the past.
Fifty years ago the Irish formed
the chief factor in the unskilled
labor population. Walk along any
business street and one might be sure
of seeing signs reading Man wanted !;
no Irish need apply. Well, the
adult generation lived and died; that
was all. Their children went to the
public school but they were never
in any great proportion unskilled
laborers. The third generation of
these Irish immigrants is still living
in New York City. Who are they.
and what are they The answer is
easy: they are the greatest factor in
the political and industrial energy of
the state-senators, congressman.
engineers. contractors, cler2ymen.
educators and railroad builders. And
the Jews of three generations ago?-
bankers, merchants. and capitalists.
Both nationalities are furnishing the
red blood of the country today.
Pardon another heresy the red blood
is worth a lot more to the country
than the blue blood.
Now it has been shown that if the
human mind goes without training
U6IW66u Iu0 ages VI SiA duu GW6uIy IL
ceases to grow. Suppose that all these
youngsters of foreign born parentsge
bad grown up without school train
ing. The answer to this is also easy !;
they would have been just what
their grand parents were-the fotsam
and jetsam of civilization.
In the city of Mount Vernon. New
York. it costs about six hundred dol
lars to steer youngster through the
elementary aud high schools The
average income of one hundred men
graduates of the high schol is not far
from fifteen hundred dollars a year.
At five percent this is the income on
thirty thousand dollars. 10 other
words we invest six hundred dollars
and the product commands just fifty
times that sum What failure -