The Winslow mail. (Winslow, Ariz.) 1893-1926, 1924-11-21

| require educatlOnaIIy.
| There are two ways of indicating
our present educational situation in
| America" says President w. A. Jes-
sup of the Iowa State university 1--WE
can measure the distance from where
we are to where we ought to be, and
the showing is bad. We can measure
the distance from where we were a
few years ago to where we are and
there is ample ground for hope and
encouragement, even for pride, if we
do not let such pride make us con-
tented and blind to the many defects.
Either one of two psychologists may
be used. We can fatty condemn the
American people for their school fail
IRE, or we can give praise for their
accomplishments. at the same time
empha sizing the fact that if they had
| tugged a little harder, if they had CIV
en- more dollars in taxation here or
more intelligent thought and interest
there, the net result would have been
far greater. But even as it is, we
have come a long way.
| In the beginning the desire was to
get children to school, simply get
them to school, without any intelli-
gent or comprehensive thought as to
what the quality of the school might
be- Now we have become nationally
disturbed and indignant because our
schools are not one hundred per cent
perfect The new demand is that the
teacher shall be a professionally train
ed true leader of childhood. We have
come to possessing an ideal of educa-
ton. No matter how far ahead of us
the attainment of that ideal still is,
the first ideal is a long way behind us.
1t may be that we are only sixth
grade nation, but there is no other
sixth-grade nation on the earth.
Think for moment of the United
States as it is today-twenty-five per
cent illiterate, fifty per cent unedu-
Gated, and with it's undetermined per-
centages of greed and Mysteries. To
pie so developed and transformed that
any man or woman in the common
run of it's many millions of citizens
might be described thus:
"a person with powers proportion
ally developed, with mental discrim-
ination, aesthetic appreciation, and
moral determination, one aware of his
social relationship and happily active
in the discharge of all his obligations,
one capable of leisure, loving nature,
reyering human beings their aspira-
tons and achievements, one observant
of facts, respectful of law and order,
devoted to truth and justice, one who
while loyal to the best traditions of
his people, dreams and works toward
better things, and one in whom is the
allure of the ideal and whose life will
not be faithless thereto"
The quotation is a declaration of
independence of all the ills which now
afflict us. 1t is the goal, the sort of
person at whom the school aims.
Much has been said about the un-
trained inadequate, shiftless teachers
who are Enot fit and worthy of their
work. They are. most remarkable
body of men and women, mostly wo-
men. And if everything that American
statesmen have said and written since
the beginning of this nation about the
indispensable public school is true,
they are the most. useful and import
ant group of men and women in
America. The loyal teacher is COM
munity blessing.
1t is beginning to dawn on a rapidly
increasing number of taxpayers that
money spent on schools is a communi-
ty welfare investment, without which
any community is doomed. More and
more the teachers are beginning to
respect their own profession and thus
compelling the respect of the republic.
The new idea of giving rural schools
more attention is also going to help
in making the United States educated
in ten years. The rural schooling
should be a great distinct department
of national education. 1t calls for as
high and fine a quality and as much
specialization in training as does a
place on any college faculty A new
and splendid dignity has been given
to it by the realization that in the
country the task of the teacher in
cludes the genuine linking of the
school with the whole life of the COM
munity for the betterment of both.
In view of all these things and the
list might be made much longer, WHY