The Winslow mail., 1925-03-27

| Al lIlc IISlll Is SHOWN lIlo Skull
desia, and which is believed to be
almost man. At the left is the SIX
schools. This is time when those
young people need all the sympathy
of experienced and qualified teach
ers. The pupils are in new sur
roundings, working under entirely
now conditions and taking new
subjects. Encouragement and fail
ure are likely results of poor teach
ing. The strongest teachers on the
high school faculty should be
placed in charge of the children in
the first and second years of work.
Teachers are employed to in
struct in certain subjects, and too
frequently they think that when
they have taught their classes,
their work is done. There are in
structors in science, in mathemat-
les, and language, but nobody
seems to be interested in making
manly men out of the boys and wo-
manly women out of the girls.
The high school can not be con-
Quoted on such plan. The condi-
tions are all against it. The boys
and girls at this age need some
thing more than mere instruction
in academic subjects. They need
to be trained in habits of close ap-
plicatiOn; they need to have placed
before them constantly in different
ways high ideals and standards
They need to come together often
and to begin to take part in public
meetings. These four years are the
most important of all years in edu-
cation. An entire absence of things
sacred and serious during this peri
cd may easily fasten upon the stu
dent habits of Indifference and care
lessness for life.
More Men Needed to Teach.
while we do not for one moment
fail to recognize the large merit of
women in the schools, and especial
ly in the lower grades, we believe
that larger number of strong men
in the grammar grades and in the
high schools is much to be desired.
There is no doubt whatever that
men have larger influence upon
the older boys and that they are
more successful in keeping them in
school. In considering this ques-
ton, however, it should always be
remembered that when the teach
ers are really manly men and wo-
manly women, no question of sex is
involved. The real desire, after
all, is to be rid of both unworthy
men and of the unworthy women
who are burden upon the profess
sion. This will do more than any
thing else to keep larger numbers
of boys and girls in the grades and
high schools. This will do more
than anything else to build in the
lives Of the boys and girls habits
that will insure in largest meas
ure thorough manhood and wo-
manhood
1--WE believe that the common
schools, including the grades and
high schools, are better than they
have ever been before; that there
are more and better teachers than
ever before; that in every way the
system throughout the United
States as it is organized is superior.
But our contention is that this or
ganization is, in many instances,
out of joint with the times, and
that hence the schools do not meet
the present needs of all the people.
They do not reach a large enough
percentage of the boys and girls.
They seem the country over to ex-
ist for the needs of the few instead
of for the needs of the many. Fur
thermore, it sometimes may be
questioned whether the schools al
ways do the best thing they can for
the few they do reach On the
broad proposition that education
hould at least help everyone toward
getting the most out of life, and
should prepare him to do the work
in the world in which he can make
the largest returns to the commu-
nifty, it is at least fair to lay some
of the blame for the large number
of vocational misfits to the train
ing received in the schools. That
there are misfits surely admits of
no denial. Doubtless there are
many mediocre professional men
who spoiled so many skillful crafts
men in the making and doubtless
there are many mediocre workmen
or skilled craftsmen for that mat
ter who, with opportunity and
training. might be eminent in the
so-called learned professions Ev-
cry large community has it's full
quota of mediocre lawyers. doctors,
preachers and teachers, with Meth
err aptitude or liking for the call
ings into which they have drifted
on account of their training. Every
community likewise has men and
women in the ranks of skilled and
unskilled labor who with the oppor-
tunity of these professional misfits
might have been successful in
thes callings. But certainly, and
more pathetically than either of
these classes, in all communities is
the still larger army of unskilled,
unframed men and women with no
Life work. This is the vast army
in the large cities and densely set
| tied rural communities that for.