The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-10-17
The Only Way
rTHERE is only one best way foir a de-
By DIR. FRANK CRANE

THERE is only one best way for a de-
mocracy to do what it has to do; only
one good way, in fact; and all other
ways are poor, stupid, and ineffective.
That one way is through the Public
Schools. ~ -sS
First, enlarge the schools until they take
care of the training of every boy and girl in
the United States until the age of twenty-one.
Second, let the schools assume the direc-
tion of the youth all the working hours of
the day.
And third, modernize the Public School so
that it shall train youth for Life and for
citizenship.
Take up these three items First, the Pub
lie School should train ALL the children.
There are thousands Of boys and girls who
cannot get proper education for the reason
that they have to wotk to help support the
family. This is abominable.
We are the richest nation on the globe. We
spent many millions last year in charities;
that is, in endowing colleges, hospitals, and
churches. If every cent of this had gone
toward getting ALL the children into decent
training the effect would have beeA infinitely
better.
Charity doctors symptoms; right Public
School system strikes directly at disease.
The South is full of poor whites and me-
groes who cannot get schooling. Many
charitable" organizations are trying to
remedy this. But is our business the states,
the nations business? The North has many
children, in city slums, in poor country dis
tricts, everywhere, who work in factories, as
sist their parents in piece-work at home, ped
die papers in the streets, or in some other
way are drafted into business" when they
ought to be learning how to live.
not ID &c
these boys and girls with school houses and
teachers, but, if necessary with food and
clothing.
1t may be said we have no right to inter
fere with parental privileges, and no right
to overburden taxpayers. That is a mistake.
There is a greater right than any Of these,
a greater duty the right of every child to q
square deal, to decent preparation for life,
and the duty of the state to train its young.
Before these sovereign obligations all other
obligations disappear.
Second, children should be under training
ALL THE TIME. That means all day and
all year. Teachers are needed on the play
ground even more than in the schoolroom.
Children need guidance during the summer
vacation as much as in winter. The idea is,
intelligent supervision and training of all
children all the time during adolescence.
Nothing short of that will do.
To say this is extravagant is begging the
question. Extravaganza implies something
beyond necessity. The training of youth is
la necessity.
And do you realize what it would mean!
It would mean that we would do easily and
intelligently a thousand vital things which
we now do clumsily and with angry friction.
Every real reform could be quietly accom-
plished.
Nine-tenths of the abandoned women are
enlisted in their fearful life before the age
of twenty-one. Get all your girls decently
taken care of and your social evil would be
reduced to minimum. -@sHt .'
Criminal gangs in great cities are recruited
from boys who grow up in the slums. Cut
off the supply.
Give every child a proper education and
capital and labor would cease violence and
hate and begin to adjust their relations with
some intelligence.
There is but one thing the matter with the
United States, and with the world. We do
not educate all our children. That includes
all other faults.
We are only fooling with education. Our
exclusive endowed universities are sickly
evasions of our greatduty, they are medieval,
wholly inadequate.
Let ms train ALL the boys and girls. And
let us do it ourselves and not ask the Stand
ard Oil Company and the Steel Trusts to do
it for us. To-,
We must do it! Anything else is arrested
national development, if not national suicide.
God knows we don't need the toll Of these
children. Let us take care Of them. We
must. 1t is the only wayl