On the Firing Line in Education | Page 7

out of season, they have labored unceasingly to acquaint the public with the facts and to urge preventive and remedial action. To the unselfish work of these leaders of educational thought and action, supplemented by the generous assistance of the medical profession, is due the fact of our present-day intelligence in regard to the matter. Educators have been deeply interested, thoroly alive, and intelligently at work. How they have agitated the matter of better ventilation and better lighting of schoolhouses! How they have pleaded for medical inspection and appropriate medical treatment of school children! How they have urged the employment of the school nurse! How they have workt for the playground and the gymnasium and for sane methods of handling the same!
But they do not form the court of last appeal. They have no authority. They all stand in about the same anomalous position as does the man nominally at the head of the educational activities of the country--the United States Commissioner of Education. They may gather statistics, make reports, and suggest action. But that is all. Tho possessing full knowledge of the situation, tho knowing just how to proceed to usher in a better day, they are not permitted to take any action. Responsible? Of course they are not responsible. "Redeem" themselves? From what, pray? "Laughing stock"? How long, oh! how long, will our great army of teachers, three-fourths of a million strong, be unappreciated, belittled, and maligned!
Who, then, is responsible? In the last analysis there is but one answer--the public itself. Since the community at large as well as the individual afflicted is, in the final outcome, a sufferer in every case of physical disability, as also in that of illiteracy, it is its duty, as a mesure of self-protection, at least, to assume direction. Adequate information is at hand as to desirable methods of procedure. Demonstrations a-plenty have been given to prove that the program suggested is feasible, inexpensive, and beneficial. This has been brought about thru the action of a few small groups who have thus presented clear and convincing object lessons. But why must we say "a few"? Why is not such work nation-wide? That is a longer story. It follows.
The United States of America is a Republic--a representative democracy--a government in which all the people participate. And the government of the United States is a Federal government. It is made up of a group of States, each one exercising supervision and control over its local matters. And education has thus far been considered a local matter. And in many ways that soverenty has been still further divided. We have as a smaller unit of school organization the county, and a smaller one yet, the township, and, in many states, a still smaller one, the school district, containing, in many instances, only a few square miles of territory and, of course, a very limited population. But in some respects, within certain limits, each of these small units is a law unto itself, having much to say as to the length of the school term, the character of the teaching, and many other phases including such as the one under consideration.
For these reasons it frequently happens that side by side are school districts, or townships, or counties, with widely differing educational programs. Here is one with attractive buildings, well ventilated and well lighted, well equipt in every way, in the hands of competent teachers, with physician and nurses subject to call. But just over the imaginary line is another with nothing quite satisfactory. They are just living up to the strict letter of the State's requirement and that is all. Not one dollar is being spent that represents the community's voluntary contribution to the welfare of its child life or to the future well-being of humanity.
And why? Just because we are a Democracy. Just because our action must be the united action of many, representing the average intelligence of the entire governmental unit and not that of its most intelligent members. For this reason a democracy is always slow to act along new lines. The majority of the people have to be convinced of the wisdom of the new mesure. And education is itself always a slow process. People change their minds slowly. Slowness of action is one of the prices we have to pay for our democracy. On the other hand, an absolute monarchy can act quickly, for there may be but one individual to assimilate the new idea or to be convinced of the wisdom of the proposed change.
These facts are easily made clear by historical references, and, happily, in the very matter under discussion--educational procedure. In the eighteenth century Prussia, under the two great Hohenzollern kings, Frederick William I and his son, Frederick the Great, the two ruling from 1713 to 1786, made