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school system, was borrowed largely from Germany, while our system of higher education was developed independently. There has not been proper articulation between the different parts of our educational system. As a result, it is generally believed that there is needless waste in our educational work. There is waste due to unnecessary elimination of pupils from school. There is also needless waste on the part of those who repeat grades in the schools.

Experiments and practice have shown that the traditional elementary school curriculum can be shortened. It has also been shown that the curriculum can be enriched by the addition of subjects which would have value in contemporary life.

While emphasis has been placed in this chapter on the failure of practice to keep abreast of scientific knowledge respecting education, still it should be said that in some ways practice outruns accurate knowledge. We still teach certain subjects and employ certain methods without knowing whether they are the most valuable and effective subjects and methods that could be employed. However, experimental schools are being established to investigate and test educational doctrines in the hope that all our practice may eventually be based upon adequate and accurate knowledge, although we must perhaps expect that in some respects practice will generally outrun accurate and adequate knowledge of educational values and methods.

XVII

CHANGING OBJECTIVES IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS

UR early forefathers engaged for many decades in vigorous and often heated debate over the question of establishing free and compulsory education for all Compulsory children, regardless of their social, economic, or racial status.

The Establishment of Free and

Schools

There may be some readers who can remember the time when the schools were not free; every parent paid for the tuition of his children. It was quite generally believed in our country in former times that it would be unjust for a community to make every citizen contribute to the education of all the children of the community, because it was held by many, though not by everyone, that schooling was of benefit only to the children who received it. But even in the first period of our history, it was urged by some persons that the training at the public expense of all the young would be of advantage to all the people, since an ignorant person would not be able to comprehend the requirements in order to become a decent and lawabiding citizen. It was asserted by a few that every adult who had had no schooling would become a menace to the peace and welfare of the community, and that therefore every child should be compelled to acquire the rudiments of knowledge so that he could at least read.

In 1642, the Massachusetts Colony enacted a law compelling parents to have their children taught to read, and enforcing fines if they neglected this duty. In 1647, the same colony enacted a law requiring that every community having as many as fifty householders should appoint a teacher of reading and writing and should provide for his wages in any way they deemed best. This law also required that every community having as many as one hundred householders must provide a Latin grammar school to prepare youths for the university. Nevertheless, the majority of our forefathers believed that an educated adult would have an advantage over an uneducated one because he could make his living in an easier way, would have more leisure for enjoyment, and his education would improve his social status; but these benefits would be of value solely to the individual and not to the community. Since most of the people held this view in earlier times, the schools were originally private institutions for the most part, and were supported by those who could afford to pay tuition fees. In those days, few persons would have thought of suggesting laws compelling all the people to pay taxes for the support of public schools, for the reason that it was not generally believed that a person who could not read or write or use figures would imperil the economic, social, or moral welfare of the community.

Any reader of these lines would be impressed by an examination of the arguments for and against the establishment of free schools and compulsory education laws, which arguments extended over a considerable period in our early history. As one traces the discussion down through the years, he can see how those who maintained that the schooling of all children-at least in the rudiments of education-was essential for the welfare of all the people in the community, continually gained force and adherents, until finally the balance of power swung over from the opponents to the advocates of universal free education. The proposition that made the strongest appeal and that ultimately determined positive action was that every person who could read, write, and calculate according to the needs of daily life, and who had learned something about religion and the founding of our government and the principles of freedom upon which it is maintained, would make a better citizen than one who could not read or write and so who would have to depend upon others for information regarding the nature of our government and what is demanded of every individual in order that it should continue to be strong, stable, and prosperous. In the discussion of this matter, statements were frequently made to the effect that autocratic and monarchical forms of government exist where a large proportion of the people are ignorant. Just as frequently one reads that in a government like ours all the people must possess the rudiments of knowledge or else our democratic institutions cannot survive; if only a few are educated while the many are ignorant, the former will in time take unfair advantage of the latter, and democratic government will perish.

These propositions were presented so vividly and forcefully by the early friends of universal free education that they were at last successful in overcoming the opposition to the maintenance of a school system which required that all the citizens in a community should contribute to the education of all the young, even though some of the people had no children themselves to take advantage of the schools. There were a few persons in every community who protested as vigorously as they could that it was an injustice to make a family in which there were no children help pay for the education of other people's children. Those who clung to this view were upheld by intelligent and leading men in other countries; such men as Herbert Spencer in England, for instance, contended that a child who received an education gained benefit for himself individually, but that he did not contribute to the welfare of the people as a whole, and that therefore he should pay for his own schooling and others should not be required to assist him.

It should be specially noted that free and compulsory education was not established in our country for the

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