Afro-American courier. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1926-19??, 1935-07-01
The Educational ORGANIZATION
B
MISS MARIE SILL Tatchez College.

we are dong now We reading this another DOOR,
we are discussing with functionary called teacher
we mixing chemicals dssectng plants examin
ing rocks writing theme all of these routine actv
ties and they are publicly approved procedures.
~ s FOR instance, let us Imagine ourselves in room
which is set aside for such purposes subject
studying belongs to certain department; the depart
rent belongs in larger whole which is called the col
l4ge the college belongs in larger whole which is called
the university the university belongs in larger complex
system of thinking feeling and action which called the
school system. Hence, involved in this system
whether like it not. In studying people
abruptly the rugged fact that the human
vved on earth by producing young after its kind
and by this young gradually slipping into the places of
the elders the latter pass In any reproductive
these young along in numbers and rates which
ascertain. might say that in the U. S. there
approximately two and half million babies born every
year
They small when born. But insects are small
when born There necessary handicap in being born
small The handicap comes however in the initial size in
relation to the later adult size and responsibility
Here they then in society and they in
every socety-the 'Innocents Abroad to Mark
Twains famous phrase in transition from incom-
prehensbe world to another; thrust out thrown upon
the shows of time like pathetic driftwood the beach,
not the product of foethoght but the product of pas
SION living but not knowing how to live; growing but
not knowing how to grow; endowed with capacity but
possessing estimate of it. Yet this is the stuff from
which the human beings start The question is which
way will they live, grow develop
There two possibilities that offer to the answer
of this question First they might grow animals grow
They might without any restraint except that which
the physical environment would give them This is
thinkable possibility.
Second, artificial growth is thinkable possibility
With few exceptions the babies allowed any
where earth, to develop with social pressures Rous
seau, the French philosopher grew weary of the art
fi6aty and abslrdity ofis time. Revolted to what he
called naturasm, he made his seepless to keep
his boy "unspotted from the world And by making
this objective his "sleepess care he really exercised
"unnatural influence. He applied pressure which
is not .n nature and therefore sanctioned artificial
growth which is the only other possibility, The young
not born in deserts in inhabited areashey born
in families in communities amidst culture, people
this is part of their world and is the most sig-
Nnfican part for of growth The minute the young
Gre born this environment this social world begins to APP
ply pressure to shape the growth.
The motivation to shape the young has always been
Al complex and poorly understood mother. Some of the
Chief elements have been fear of kind another,
faffcon the trend of things, the desire of leadership
and the search for instruction.
The school receives the ignorant child and proceeds
shape him. 1t may be interested primarily in the well
fare of the child his happiness and success 1t may be-
gin by locating the child mentally and then by showing
MIN how to find evidence for this that conclusion
which may be temporarily advanced 1t may teach the
child respect for evidence and love for truth which the
evidence supports 1t may train the child to think indie
pendently and to avoid being swalowcr OF what
others hand out This is education.
On the other hand the school may be interested more
itself than in the child interested in building itself up
and perpetuang itself 1t may have pet theory to in
cucae and therefore, to perpetuate. 1t make the
child fanatical slave of ideas. This is propaganda.
Educators and propagandsts alike agree that it will
not do to let others alone But they differ in their rea
for forcngthe being interested in the salts
factory growth of the child adult, the other being in
terested primarily in his prosperity The educator
teaches his pupils how to discriminate how to weigh how
be of what they finally conclude human beings
be- the propaganda teaches his pupils how to accept
unctcay how to be loyal practical veins In one case
the pupil is the end; in the other the pupil is merely
We sometimes suppose because OF the great cmha-
sis given propaganda during and since the World War
that this type of shaping growth rather thing on
the earth. Certainly histories do not tell us much OF
it's before the But, this thing is not new 1t Is
old any kind of social pressure when the early par
ent told the child to keep from certain spot be-
cause shirts lurked there