The Cordova daily times., 1920-02-21
Cooperation Between Home and
 School


 In the great task of making educa- tion universal the home must accept it's share of the responsibility. Our school can never rise above the level of our homes, and that which elevates the one will enrich the other Educa- tional effort is not confined to the school room. There are numberless problems in education which must be solved in the home-many more must be solved by the united wisdom of home and school. We must inter- est the people before we can expect them to be alert and enthusiastic.
 The child is the center around which the whole educational system resolves. Upon the proper education of the child in home and school depend the safety and perpetuity of the republic itself. Whatever affects the child in the school room or in the home affects the welfare of all the people. Parent and teacher and the state alike have an interest in the future citizen.
 The child is the great educational problem Uuon the proper understand ing of the child depends the character. of the education given, and the kind of manhood and womanhood which I~ YQ teacher do not cooperate in that edu- cation it will be one-sided and incom- plete. Who can tell of the lives gone wrong because the child was not un- derstood? What mistakes have been made and never corrected because pa- rents, children, teachers had not op- portunity or courage or encourage ment to tell each other in confidence vital facts affecting the health, the comfort and the spirit of the child! Teachers have been obliged to study the parents through the children. They have looked into the wrong end of the telescope. Parents, in the same man. ner, have gained little of acquaintance with teachers.
 What can be done to draw all these influences together-to bring the pa- rent and teacher into closer relation ship with the child as interpreter, in order that children may be better un- derstood at home and in school, and that education may be made simpler and more effective? The organization of Parent-Teacher Association is the first great step in the accomplish ment of this worthy aim for the bet .terment of the condition of the child,
 Judge Hoffman of the juvenile court of Cincinnati evidently knows how to appeal to young offenders and get re- sults A certain 15-year-old boy was brought before him for windowston- ing, and after talk the boy was re- auired to write an essay setting forth his idea of "Civic Pride" A part of this essay follows, and it has some thing in it for all of us:
 s'Civic pride means being proud of ] your city; and the real way to be proud of it is not going around brag- ying about it, but to do everything you can to make it a city everyone else will brag about. Everyone ought to have civic pride; because we all really want to have nice city, and we ourselves are the ones who can make it so. Everyone must do his share. Each school child can be inn portant and useful to his city by try ing to keep it as clean as possible and not carelessly doing damage to public improvements"
 Americanism is more than sys- tenn of government; it is the spirit of a national life The American people believe in self-government tempered with wisdom. They believe also that a nation has a right to live it's own life without interference by other na- tions. The teacher of American his tory should remember that she is not merely teaching American history, but is attempting to show how that history illustrates the development and application of these principles. We need to teach pride in our coun- rry and a consciousness of our obli- xation to it in return for the privileges of American citizenship.
 The purposes of the Almighty are
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