The Topeka state journal., 1921-12-10
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC J. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, D. @.
EDUCATION WEEK.


dent of the. United States to impress
| upon the American people the fact
that education in this country is in a
most backward condition, and to in
| terest citizens in community efforts
to improve it.
1t is easy to prove by statistics that
| in this country an education is rela-
| lively hard to get. Perhaps more i'm
portant is the question of what kind
| of education offered a child in the
| United States is worth after he gets it.
| That, however, is a debatable ques-
| ton, while the inadequacy of our
school facilities is demonstrable in a
way that no one can refute.
The congressional committee which
| recently made a study of education in
| the United States decided that this
| country ranks tenth among the ma
tions in the value of the education it
| offers its citizens. The percentage of
| its citizens who never learn to write
| is also much higher than in the prin-
| cipal European countries. Estimates
| of illiteracy are never very accurate,
| but the United States is generally
credited with about 100000 inhabi-
: tants over 10 years of age who are il
! IIterate. TWenty-eight per cent of
these illiterates are native white citi-
zens, 80 per cent are foreign born
while per cent are Orientals.
Germany, England, France, Holland,
and Switzerland all have smaller per-
centages of illiterates than the United
StateS-or at least did have before the
war. These countries all have much
less wealth than America, and we are
prone to think of them as less ad-
vanced in democracy than we are.
Yet in education, which is the very
foundation of every democratic instf-
tuition, they all are ahead of US.
Iliiterate Immigrants.
In eastern and southern Europe the
percentages of iIliterates in the popu-
lations of the various countries are
much higher, ranging from % per
cent in Austria to SO per cent
in Rumania. 1t is from these wholly
uneducated countries, and from their
most uneducated classes, that the
United States is now drawing most of
its immigrant population.
The percentage of ilIiteracy merely
reflects the well known fact that
there are not enough schools in the
United States. In almost every large
city the schools are reported over
crowded every year. We hear of dou-
Bile shifts and of enormous classes,
which means little or no individual at
tention for each pupil In most of
our rural districts schools still keep
open only few months in the year.
and many country children can reach
school only by long hard walks.
Far more important is the question
OF what kind Of an education the child
gets when and if he succeeds in get
ting to school. The most striking fact
in this connection is that our school
teachers are among the most poorly
paid of all workers. Plumbers and
bricklayers are plutocrats by compari-
son. Even in the great cities, teachers
are only fairly well paid. They never
earn as much as a bright man or wo-
man can make in business, nor as
much as a gifted person can make in
journalism or the arts.
When you come to the country dis
tricts and the small towns, school
teachers are paid barely a living wage.
Hence the education of the great mass
of American children is entrusted for
the most part to young girls who want
way of earning pin money until a
husband can be found.
To realize the seriousness of the
condition of education in America,
you must get an adequate conception
of what eduction might be, and of
how much depends upon it. For liter
ally everything depends upon it. The
hope of the future is in its schools.
Consider any of the major problems
which confront the country with care
and it will lead you to the schools.
Take the problem of the national
health, for instance. The draft re-
vealed the fact that about a third of
the men of military age in this coun-
try were physically unfit. In many
cases this physical unfitness was re-
ported to be due to a lack of knowl- |
In a word many of these men are
physically impaired for life because |
they had not been taught in school |
rooms those facts about the human
body and its care which are necessary |
to the health and well-being of every |
civilized individual.
Underfed Children.
Most of the rest of the unfitness
vas due to undernourishment. Many
Of these young men had not attained |
to proper physical development be- |
cause as children they had never had !
enough to eat. This is at the bottom |
an educational problem, too. For it is |
impossible to teach anything to a |
starved or hungry child. If the child |
comes to school in that condition it is |
the duty of the state to feed it. In |
deed, it is necessary for the state to |
feed it if the education which the |
state proposes to give it is not to be |
a total waste. It may be right, under |
an individualistic regime, to let the !
adult starve if he is not efficient |
enough to feed himself, but to let the
children starve or half-starve is sure |
ly imbecile. For that underfed child |
will in a majority of cases fail to at |
tain a healthy, efficient adulthood, |
and will therefore be unable properly |
to feed his children in turn
Take, again. the problem of crime. |
The United States produces more of it |
than any other civilized country in |
the world. Yet scientists have proved |
beyond question that more than 80 !
per cent of all crime is committed byl
persons of impaired mentality who |
could easily have been identified as /
such in childhood. In other words, if |
proper scientific study were made of |
the school child, the greater part of |
crime would be prevented by isolate |
ing the criminal when young. Fur |
thermore, in this way, many of these |
psychopaths could be cured and made !
into useful citizens.
In fact the scientific study of the |
child in school is the thing above all |
needed. Not only the child below |
normal, but also the child above nor |