, 1925-11-11

ing whatever about the schools in
which their money is invested and
to which he'll children are sent to
secure an education. Many parents
do not know the name of the school
their children attend or of the
teachers in whose care they spend
five hours of five days each week,
and whose influence upon their lives
will never be effaced. They do not
know whether the school plant is
good or bad; the equipment modern
or antiquated; the instructors ca
pable or inefficient. Having no
knowledge, they lack appreciation
of the professional skill of the
teacher; never having seen a class
in operation, they have not realized
the tremendous advances mad in
recent years in methods and sub
ject matter. Unaware of the de-
mands made by this enlarged curri-
culum and by the overcrowded
classes resulting from our rapidly
increasing population and the in
ability of the educational supply to
meet them, they content themselves
with carrying on more or less eff
GENTLY hat part of education lying
within the physical limits of the
home, and they leave to the sys-
tenn of public instruction of which
America is SO justly proud the task
of administering the taxes they pay
and of improving both the schools
and the children who are sent to
them.
Perhaps the greatest of the func-
tions of Education Week is the DEM
onstration of the schools to the
people by drawing into them the
citizens of every community, wheth-
er small or large, setting before
them the process of modern edu-
cation, the equipment required to
attain and maintain the highest
degree of efficiency, and the justice
of giving to every child, whether
in city or country, equal education
al advantages.
But merely to invite the public
into the school buildings is not
enough; there are those who will
see and not perceive; who will hear
and will not understand. In every
school in the land there should be
held in Education Week a mass
meeting at which should be prac-
tically set forth the value of edu-
cation; its effect upon the wage
earning capacity of young men and
women; the possibilities offered by
vocational training; the advantages
of part-time school. The represent
atives of the home and of the COM
/ nnunitu chnt,1d hn infnrnnd in NtQaf.
nontechnical terms as to the quail
fications of teachers and the i'm
p%ortance of providing for them the
best possible training; the recog-
milton of ability and the payment of
adequate salaries; the provision of
suitable tools for their work and
of proper conditions in which to
live and labor.
The public school is a business
partnership in which the people
are stockholders. They should know
the details of that business in terms
of practical experience, it's appli-
cation to the living conditions of
every trade and profession. Then
these stockholders should see their
plant in operation, demonstrating
not results but process, so that they
may recognize the skill and effort
which go to the production of the
finished article, and they should
have opportunity to ask questions
and receive intelligent and intelligi-
BILE answers in regard to this great
investment of millions of their mon
ey.
Teach the community about its
school; how much it costs to run
it, and how much better. it might
be made by increased expenditure.
Wake up community pride and set
it to work.
Teach the home what the school
needs from it in loyal support, in
friendly understanding, in healthy,
we~ll-trained scholars. Wake up par
ent pride and set it to work.
Learn from the community what
it wants the school to give its
children; how the curriculum may
be humanized and vitalized until
worth any price because of its
vital and fundamental value in the
life of the home.
A better public spirit. a higher
social order, will result when we
see completed the great American
triangle:
THE HoME-THE SCHooL-THE