The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-09-27
EDUCATION IN THE HOME.

IF only I could give my children
good education" Iaments many
discouraged mother, Il would gladly
work my fingers to the very bone.
But there is no opportunity in this
place, and we cannot afford to send
them away from home"
Why look aiar for what lies at our
own threshold; nay, within the mar
row boundary Of our own home?
Home life is the greatest educational
agency in the world, for good, if the
home is good; for evil, if the home
is bad. In it. all physical, all mental,
all moral qualities take root and grow.
If the soil lis good, and if the young
plants are tenderly and carefully
nurtured by the mother, the harvest,
with Gods help, will be good; but
only with Gods help. The home is
the true garden where children should
grow up. Not one helpful feature in
the kindergarten as planned by Froe-
bel, not one helpful feature in the
kindergarten as introduced into our
public school system, nor one helpful
feature in the primary school, that is
not ready at hand in every simple
well-ordered home.
Education is not book-knowledge
Boys and girls Of fourteen so trained
that they work intelligently, obey
willingly, are Teyerent, courteous,
prompt, self-controIled and observ-
ing, are educated, even if unable to
pass a sixth-grade examination. On
the other hand, the university gradu-
ate who lacks one Or more of these
essentials is not educated. 1t is neither
possible nor desirable that all become
senators, but it is highly desirable
and possible to educate every normal
child into q good, upright, trust
worthy, God-fearing citizen To attain
this will be worth any trouble, any
anxious care, it may cause. 1t will
be attained as soon as parents realize
that they are the true and God-ap-
pointed educators and follow the
maxim, F'Train up child in the way
he should co.
The home, and the home only, can
successfully educate The school, at
it's best, can only build, according to
it's lights, upon the foundation given
by home instruction, experimenting
and developing the teaching given by
wise parents. The school does not,
cannot remodel the child that has
made a false start at home. Men and
women are what they are, because
the home trained them Alright, or
failed to train them Alright. The
teacher-mother has been, is, and will
ever be the greatest educational asset
of mankind. Every mother who does
not have to support her children,
should herself teach them until they
are prepared to enter, say, the third
grade in our grammar schools and
can, with credit to the mothers and
themselves, take their places in these
schools.
Now as to the results of such home
teaching It relieves the congestion
in the lower grades, just where mass
teaching is most destructive; it pre-
pares the children so that they will
advance safely in school because they
have learned how to work and because
they understand what they have
| learned.
| It is far more important that the
child when entering any school should
be well trained, than that the new
! teacher should be competent. Even a
| poor teacher can teach something to
one who has been trained to learn,
| and therefore wants to learn; the best
/ teacher cannot teach one who has not
| been trained to learn and therefore
does not want to learn. Natural abil-
| ity, ambition, eagerness to excel will
not bring success to the pupil I'M
/ trained at home. No greater injustice
can be done the child than to place
it in school before it has learned how
| to learn, to obey, to observe, to attend
| to measure, to answer questions, to
memorize, to read, understand and
| correctly form simple sentences. These
are the foundations for all ideal, real
and practical education.
But are the mothers qualified to
give such Instruction? No mother
| who can read, is justified in saying
| that she does not know how to teach
| her own children. She can learn how,
even though she has had only prin-
airy schooling herself. At work in her
home school, she becomes clever as
she never was clever before. She