Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1917-10-28
Of building, because Tulsa has shown
US the way to better type.
Classes Crowded.

us the way to better type.
Glasses Crowded.
What beyond equipment have we In
the cshools, because 1t Is an interest
ing fact that the physical equipment
of schools Is only the opportunity to
teach. Well, we have classes too all
fired large-from forty to fifty chill
dren, with an intention to make them
forty and not much beyond; kind of
a hopeless prayer that they may cut
down to thirty-fve. We are in city
growing so rapidly, however, that the
increase in the number Of school chill
dren is $500 year.
We have about 10 per cent Of our
children in the high school, which is
about all we might expect in city
where the families here are so new
and the average age of the children
so low. We have an excellent and
democratic and scientific arrangement
of the courses in the high school. We
have a commercial course. the only
good kind, one that requires four
years for graduation; an agricultural
course, that same good kind; we teach
printing and cabinetmaking and auto
repairing; for vocational guidance we
have enough plumbing and electric
wiring and bricklaying; we have nor
NAL training and training in millinery
and dressmaking and household de-
sign. We have manual training from
the fifth grade, and sewing from the
fifth grade. We have wonderful be-
ginning in development of the bodies
of our children, and we are about to
start military training, on the theory
that if you give a boy enough of it
when lad. he won't get so hungry
for more when he grows up. We are
building n stadium for which we allot
the majestic sum of $4,000. We have
departmental work. or accepted in
struction, in the sixth, seventh and
eighth grades, and teach music and
drawing and penmanship under spe-
cial supervisor. We have a perfectly
remarkable system, made modern in
seven years, and given distinction so
that one bears it in mind always as
one of the foremost of all American
systems of public education, owing a
little part of its maintenance TO its
equipment and a great part of its dis
tinction to its teaching corps, so now
we come the very kernel of the nut.
These teachers give us a service that
we all realize. They pour out upon
our children, in the absence of the
parents, great spiritual benefaction; !;
if one of them should lack the wisdom
of Solomon, we would organize a re-
bellion against the board to have her
rat at,n,nI and IN, ho fAp thIa
service we pay her the munificent sum.
in a city where living expenses and
salaries are alike high, of 500 Il
north, or 5000 year. If you want
good stenographer. my brothers, you
must pay more, but if woman is only
teaching your children, you don't have
to pay so much. (Applause.) How
ever, if the woman is ambitious and
spends four years of her life beyond
her secondary education in going to
college and specializes and comes back
to US and does not get married, she
may hope to earn, as a teacher in the
high school, the great sum of $l,500
a year.
It's Up TO Us All.
We have n marvellous system. We
stand here tonight in pride because
we would not forego a single benefit,
not if it costs ten times as much, but
we have no whit of right to self-es-
TEEN because of this system, if we do
ont make the teaching of our own
children a well-paid profession and not
an evangelical occupation. Gap
plause.)
Beyond the public school system,
what have we? Well, we have a col
lege. A college is very interesting
thing in a town, because it provides
us: first, with an opportunity to send
our children past the secondary school,
without sending them away from
home; and because, second, it pro-
vides us with center of culture, be-
cause Of the presence Of the members
of the faculty. This is Kendall Pres
byterian college, and some of you
wish we had, instead of it, Yale or
Harvard. If you had Yale or Harvard
you would lose one thing you have in
Kendall. That is religion. Because
no great university can have any re-
ligion to which any considerable num-
Der of people object. applause and
laughter.) Now, it may not be worth
much to you to forego the Widener
library at Harvard, for what passes
for great library at Kendall. You
may not think it worth while; your
boy is to have the best, and yet / won
der if you really know why you send
him to college at all. Do you expect
to make a great professional crafts
man after four years of general train
ing in college and one extra year in a
professional school? That is no task
for five years, that is life task. You
cannot make great scientist out of
lad or lass in five years. You can
rot hope to do that in less than twenty
five. Why do you send them to col
lege at all? For the interesting OBJ
ject of disclosing their own strength
to them and making them masters of
their own strength and giving them
conservation for their strength. Is it
in your minds that you can achieve
that by sending them to state uni
versity? | am a lecturer in Mime
sofa University. | have not often re-
belled as | do, when | remember that
whatever else say from the platform
of the chapel-God save the mark
in tho chanel of the state University