Evening star., 1938-09-08
Youngsters
Future Is
At Stake
Education Enriches
Intelligence, the
Best Insurance.
BY ANGELO PATRI.


"HOW are We to know the right
school for our children? There
IS so much uncertainty and doubt
about the future. The young people
will have to work for their living,
and how are we to know that the
education they get now will help them
when the time comes?"ss
The future was never certain. It
never will be. Life is a process of
change. When things, people, think
ing cease to change We know they
are dead. We are experiencing change
just now in greater speed. in wider
scope than we have known in our
lifetimes. But other generations have
face. We will survive and live to
enjoy the results of many of the
annoying changes taking place. What
about the education for the future
generation who must live in a world
about which we know nothing and,
consequently, cannot prepare for in
the schools?
Schools do not send young people
out ready to work even in the world
that we know about. We cannot give
child or young person the expert
ences that actual work in the shop
factory. Office, laboratory and life in
general will give him. We cannot take
the place Of growth that unfolds in
an individual and changes him from
month to month. from year to year,
so that he is a different person year
to year. Schools, by the wise dis
pensation OF Providence, cannot al
together set the future interests and
activities of the children. Life does
that. Life gives the young people
a chance to find the best places for
themselves, and they do. when given
that chance.
What the schools can do, and should
do, is to train young people to think
justly and clearly, in whatever stu
alton faces them; teach them to be
concerned in all that goes on about
them, selecting what is good, to their
judgment, for further study and ap-
plication; teach them to work and
to live with open, inquiring minds;
to do whatever work they select with
all the power they can bring to bear
upon it; to know that life is process
Of change and that the law OF life
demands that people adjust them
selves to those changes as harmo.
niously as possible.
Education at its best is not rigid
affair. It Is living, changing process
like life itself, for 1t Is and must bt
an extension Of contemporary life
The cloistered isolated school is not
the school to serve the people. The
fluid school that adjusts itself to the
needs of the community Is the one
we must have.
This school does not train its pu-
pills for one line of work. What it
does is to offer as many experiences
as possible to its pupils and students,
1t does not set rigid pattern in its
graduates. but sets an attitude OF
mind that enables the student to 90
out into life and select his place and
do his work.
The professions, the industries, will
always have to finish of the new en-
trants. The schools can only offer
them the school product. which is
never the experienced worker, but
the potential worker. This applies
to every school from the elementary
through the technical and profes-
sional schools. Educations truest
service is the planting and develop
ing Of an attitude of mind, coupled
with whatever skills the student may
indicate. An enriched intelligence
is the best possible insurance for any
child's future
Copyright, 1o3s)