The Parisian. (Paris, Tenn.) 1907-1962, 1915-02-26
Parent Teachers Association
(Continued)

community than in building a solid wall
of defense about our schools against all
political assaults. Here as elsewhere
eternal vigilance is the price that must
be paid. Wherever public money is to
be spent there the would-be servant of
the people is always in evidence, and
the larger the sum the greater is his
desire to serve" and the greater his
activity. Urged on by a mighty hun
ger he raises one cry after another de-
signed to deceive the very elect. One
OF his favorite methods of approach is
to declaim with much sound and fury
against what he calls the fads in the
schools, usually such subjects as music,
physical training, drawing and hand
work, the most concrete and practical
as well as the most ancient of all SUBJ
lects taught to youth the very subject
which formed almost the entire cirri-
culm $500 years ago in Greece, and
subjects which are still the most valu-
able whether for mental development
or for direct preparation for wage earn
ing. Having thus created distrust in
in the public mind as to the efficiency
of the schools, he points his accusing
finger at the Board of Education and
charges it with reckless extravaganza
and shameless waste of the peoples
money because it seeks to pay teachers
of character and refinement and special
training and long experience a bare
living wage, about as much, for in
stance, as the ordinary unskilled labor
er receives. Or, with heart burning
with righteous indignation he will por-
tray the wrongs done the poor taxpay-
er 1.-THE taxpayer in this connection is
always poor) because the Board pays
for the education of a child for an en-
tire year the enormous sum of $35, or
less than a dollar week.
1t is the high privilege, as we'll as the
sacred duty of every parent-teacher'
organization, to raise its own members
and the public generally to such point
of intelligence on school matters that
such clap trap will fall on deaf ears.
While the only safeguard of schools,
as of our other institutions, is the char
acter and intelligence of the people.
yet experience will show that politics
may be most quickly and easily elimi-
mated from the schools, and men and
women of character and ability induced
to serve on Boards of Education, when
provision is made for relatively small
board, elected, at large by the people,
made directly responsible to the people
and made financially independent of the
city government.
There is also the problem of the prop
er regulation Of the life of the child
out of school hours and during vaca-
tions, when he is under the sole charge
of the home. What with moving pic
lures, vaudevilles, dinners, card parties
and dances. life for most young people
to-day is very attractive but at the
same time very strenuous and distract
ing. For many it is one continuous
round of excitement and mild dissina-
ton, not only during the school year,
but throughout the vacations as well.
No single parent, no matter how wise
or how firm. can cope with the problem
of regulation single handed. The moth
er who requires her daughter to come
home at II o'clock when all the rest
will stay until l, or 2, simply succeeds
in making the child peculiar and invites
speedy ostracism. Unless all parents
of given social group can agree upon
a reasonable program for juvenile social
enjoyment the case seems absolutely
hopeless. That such an agreement
-hould be speedily reached in impera-
tive. both from the standpoint of the
home and of the school. Thoughtless
critics seem inclined to lay upon the
school the blame for all the frivoities
and shadowness of youth, for their
lack of application in study, for their
consequent poor scholarship and for
their all too frequent failure in the bust
ness world. Ali these evils undoubted-
ly exist in the case of some of our young
people, by no means in the case of all.
Let us be discriminating; let US beware
of the fault of too sweeping condemna-
ton. While these evils are all too COM
mon, the cause does not lie primarily
at the door of the school. In the school
faithful anu devoted teachers are doing
their part and doing it nobly and WELL
They would do more if they could, but
they cannot discharge all the duties of
parents in addition to their own. They
are keenly alive to the fact of failure
and to the true cause of failure. They
are doing what they can to counterfeit
the results of parental inefficiency and