The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-12-14
BETTER SCHOOLS
Secretary Lane Urges Cam
paign for Rural Waking-Up.
Nations Greatest Resource,
22,OOO,OOO Boys and Girls.
TEACHERS SADLY UNDERPAID
Many Now Getting Less Than
Farm LabOrerS.
Necessity for Leadership and
Cooperation Emphasized.

Washington, Dec. 14-In his forth
coming annual report Secretary Lane
! suggests the need for a national cam
paign Tor a better rural school He
| speaks of Young America, our %, G00,-
! 600 school boys and girls, rs the chief
! resource of the Nation, and asks, Are
we doing all possible to develop this
resource?'' His report says:
! IF there is any one of our institu-
tions in which the American people
take undisguised pride and of which
they feel justified in Boosting, it is the
public school system, for this is the
greatest of American inventions and
the most successful social enterprise
yet undertaken by any people. The
| United States maintains a bureau of
| education in this department., which,
upon small appropriation, collates
as best it can the figures and facts
which most inadequately tell the story
of the growth and use of this most
| brillia ntly conceived piece Of govern
| mental machinery. -
Not Indifferent to Good Schools.
The American people are not indif-
! ferent to their schools Quite, other
wise. They pay for their support al
most as much as they do for the sup
port of the entire federal government.
in round numbers, three-quarters of a
billion dollars year, which keeps an
army of 100000 teachers at work
Education is indeed our foremost in
dustry, from whatever point OF view
it may be regarded. Yet [ am as
sured that it has made less progress
than any of our other industries dur
ing the past thirty years. With all the
marvellous record of what the mind of
a quick people may produce to make
life happier and nature more service
able, how little can be shown as our
contribution to the methods of i'm
proving the mind and skill of the
youngi We have gone to Europe--to
Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Den
mark chiefly-for the new methods
with which we have experimental,
and Japan has found a way to in
that will make these very practical
people still more distinguished.
Heart of Community.
yet here and there under rare
leadership may be found in this coun-
try the most striking proofs of what
can be dOre to tie our schools to our
life. The hope is eventually to make
t c school what it should md cas-
lily may be made to be, the y heart
of the communicated cIu and CO.
operative center as we'll as school,
81 There would seem to be sRetIling,
visionary in such a hope To effect
this evolution there is needed primar-
lily leadership, and this the govern
ment must give if it is to realize its de-
sire for a people who are both skilled |
and happy. The spirit of our people |
is against a -paternal government. We |
do not take with kindness to an au- |
thority that is mandatory. There is
a sound belief that a people who make
their own way are in the end ripper
and of stronger fiber than those who
accept what is not the result of ccm-
mon determination. But this spirit of Il
intense individualisnn does not make
rs independent of or Indifferent to
useful methods and helpful standards
And it IS these that we can reveal
It is these that we should find and
place in service, rather than force the
schools of the land to
EEL their way out or 'muddle
through We may not command,
out we may show how
Substitute for AbsoIutisra
This is democracy's substitute for
lbsolutism in the effort to secure eff
siency. For such policy of helpful
less there is abundant precedent, not
>nly in the action of congress in max
ng minor appropriations for the work
If the bureau Of education on precise
y these lines, but in the activities of
1ther departments. The country is
lotted with experimental farms which
prove soil values and the farmer of to-
lay is learning from the government
low great and all embracing must be
he knowledge necessary 70 the carry
ng on of his work, for he must know
# chemistry. mechanics. markets and
finance, transportation, and a world of
Kings which his father or grandfather
would have laughed at as the frillS of
doctriraire education, notwithstand-
ng the early example of the wise and
farmer who was the third
president of this country.
Il have said in a previous report
hat the. bureau of education should
ither be abolished or put to serious
high purpose. L believe the latter to
'e the wise, in fact the necessary,
curse. There is real use for it. AS
n the bureau of mines, we seek to
ave the lives of miners by educating
hem in the use of explosives and
ife-saving apparatus and by instruct
ng operators in safe ways of building
heir vast underground workshops, so
would erect the bureau of educa-
ion into bureau of educational
Methods and standards, in which
would be gathered the ripe fruit of all
EDUCATIONAL experiments, upon which
he schools of the country could draw
his is a wide country, and there is
eed for a national clearing house |
yhere can be conferred and exchanged ]