The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1947-01-30
OUR LARGEST

Perhaps it may seem That we are aI'!NltIttN l'
occupicd with The QUESTION OF or community 5 ami
our l,otion', public schools. We have cNPr,>>rd cur
opinion, about the problems Of our educational SYSTEM
from time to time. but we have never rNpla''to Nh'
we read all the articles we can Get our hands ON com
c.rninr education 50 Hri,lv and why we cro>>-Guv>t!"l1
+oo,l,,r, and school pco,l, So closely whenever we 90
the chance.
Among our close friends, former school mates
and relatives are Il great many teachers. and 1t was
through hearing these people talk that we tlr>t became
interested in education. Then we l'a'1'Io that ar';"
service test, revealed some rather shocking lacks IL
the knowledge of the yo,n" men who served their
country.
It also seems obvious to us that welfare of cf1l-.
dren and Young people of a community is cioselH 'eo
in With the public schools and we belleVc 'hat ths IS
Of vital concern to everyone, whether they are parents
or not.
We have been on the lookout for references to
education in magazine articles not directly concerned
with the subject, and of late our periodicals. have
broken out in a rash Of SUCH references.
Almost everyone has seen the phrase "education
for the atomic age 1t seems to crop up IN almost
every discussion of the Bomb. Not long ago we read
an article O socialized medicine-and the writer point
ed out that far greater benefit would result from proper
health education than from any sort OF Legislation. IN
comments on our labor troubles, the matter OF edllca-
ton and viewpoint comes up again and again. and no
article on world peace seems complete without a state
ment on the need for better understanding OF other
peoples and of international affairs, through education.
Most OF the writers OIL tneSe drtlClt III llSll
gent or their opinions would not be worth publishing:
Surely they have brains enough to know that special
courses in all these matters of vital Importance to the
nation cannot be given in our schools. What they
sometimes specifically plead for and at other times sus-
gest by implication is that our boys and girls be given
the tools with which to form their own conclusions
about these matters.
That sounds pretty simple, but we don't think it
is. Our schools today face a vast number OF problems
that were unheard of not too many years ago. We
tO toxic in come Of tbpSe DrOh|emS from time
to time and see what our community can Go about
them.
This week, however, we want to point out the
thing that we believe makes such a discussion very
much to the point in a rural newspaper, such as this one.
We believe very firmly that a community can have,
within certain limitations, the kind of schools it wants,
and we don't have to go outside the city limits of Har-
din to prove it.
What things connected with our schools have we,
as citizens, been most obviously and publicly interested
in? That's right-basketbal and music. Result!
We'll, ever since W. came to Hardin, the high school
has had good basketball teams, a good coach, and a
bunch of kids with a burning ambition to make the
team. Certainly no one can deny that our schools also
have a good music depastment. The standing of the
school band, the excellence of the work done by the
vocal music department., are ample evidence of that.
There you are. You got what you asked for.
We asked for them, too. We're ardent sports fans
and we like to hear the band, and so forth. But we've
been asking ourselves lately if there aren't other things
more important. What kind of tools for living as use
full citizens are our boys and girls getting? And how
do we find the answer to that question?
There are methods by which we can investigate
what kind of jobs our schools are doing academically,
but they require a certain amount of effort on our
part. We'll go into that matter in another editorial.
But it the answers to these questions are not
wholly satisfactory, we should not cens,re teachers or
the school administration. We have only ourselves to
blame. Neither is it as easy now as it once was for
the schools to function as they should, and a great
many elements enter into the difficulties that educa-
tional systems all over the nation are having.
We favor and have favored higher salaries for
teachers for a long time, but this is not the onlv ali.
swer, and certainly indiscriminate wage increases with
out considering qualifications for the job can in some
instances do as much harm as good.