The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1922-03-17
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE
DEMAND OF THE TIMES

heeplHS LOT tne girls ana lne WORK
of the farm-at that time the occu-
patton OF the great majority of the
workers-for the boys, were taught
at home by father and mother as a
matter of course. Now the shop, tne
factory and the store are drawing the
young people from the home and the
farm. The man and wife who used to
be teachers as well as parents are no
longer able to supply the training de-
manded for their children. 1t is as
sumed that the school can do what the
parents have found themselves unable
to do and in this assumption originates
much of the prevalent dissatisfaction
with the public school system. The
most stupendous task in the world,
the training for life and industry. not
of a select talented few but of all
the children Of all the people, has sud
denly been transferred from millions
of individual homes to one institution
hampered by innumerable restrc-
tons, and we are impatient and an
tagOnistic with that institution be-
cause it fails to transform all of these
children into the models of intell-
gence and efficiency which we parents
and employers think they ought to be
Did you ever think of the limitless
opportunity of the school as compared
with the home in moulding the mind
and character of the child? The av
erage child spends less than 1000 hours
a year under school control. Up to
six years of age the home has com
plete control, and after that age out
of 5000 waking hours of the year, the
school control extends only over
a thousand hours. That is to say ex-
Guiding the hours spent in sleep, the
responsibility of the parent measured
in time is four times that of the
school. And yet as a result of some
extraordinary perversity of the public
mind, the incompetence and disap-
pointing worthlessness of the children
are almost invariably charged not to
the parents and home maker, respon-
sible for their existence, their care
during infancy and childhood, includ-
ing four-fifths of their waking hours
during school life, but to the teachers
who each struggle with forty to fifty
pupils for five hours day, during
five days of forty weeks of each year.
1t seems to me that in this matter
parents and public are wrong in shift
inc the main responsibility from
parent where nature and reason have
placed it, on to an institution limited
in its opportunities and its powers as
the public school must necessarily be.
The public school is limited in it's
powers and opportunities for many
reasons. First its income is not un
der its own control. The money
necessary for its support is ultimate
ly controlled by the voters of the
state who are responsible for our
state laws, our county supervisors
and our state and county superintend-
ents of schools. 1t was long ago dis
covered that bricks could be made
without straw and it is equally evil
dent today that the enormous and
ever growing demands on the public
schools cannot be met without largely
increased expenditures. During re-
cent years most Washington school
departments have added to their
courses of study instruction in music,
carpentry, cooking, sewing, millinery
mechanical drawing, stenography,
bookkeeping, banking and other com
mercial subjects. And there is a per-
sistent demand for the teaching of
subjects calling for still more accom-
modations, more teachers, more APP
paratus and more money. There are
several girls high schools in New
York who have elaborate provisions
for photography developing, blue
printing, laundry work, banking,
housekeeping, garment designing and
physical training
While on my vacation in California
last year, | cut the following from an
article in San Francisco newspaper:
Compulsory education laws work
to keep the boys and girls in the pub
lie schools until they are fourteen or
sixteen years Of age. That means for
the larger number of boys and girls
until they have finished the work of
the elementary schools. Then with
virtually nothing but such equipment
for advanced study as they have
CLEANED from the prescribed elemen-
tary school texts, hundreds of boys
are dumped into the commercial world
every year in every considerable Am
erican city. There is virtually no
place in industry for the boy who
leaves school between the ages of
fourteen and sixteen years. He is un-
trained. He is Irresponsible The
trades will not have him. The unions
properly enough are against him.
Confronted with a realization of the
evil, society is concerned to find the
best method of minimizing it, The
largest measure of relief seems to lie
III HCtIIS Iie boy lot tne 1OD ne puf-
poses to hunt the moment he may
leave school. That means vocational
training in the public schools. 1t
means the discovery and development
of trade propensities in the individual
before he leaves school. That is the
good work that the San Francisco
school board wishes to undertake. In
that work it is entitled to the support
and cooperation of the public it
serves"
Now think for a moment what this
means and implies 1t means. that
the parents have given up the task
of preparing for the duties of life the
fourteen-year-old boy they have
brought into the world. These parents
acknowledge, first, that they cannot
train the boy, and second, that they
are unable to induce anyone else to
take the trouble. Under the old sys-
tenn the boy would have been APP
prenticed to some trade, the parents
assisting him to live during tie years
! of his apprenticeship. Today, accord
ing to the above newspaper article.
the labor unions properly enough"
are against the boy and his chance to
learn so the whole difficulty is dumped
on to the public schools as the easiest