CHAPTER V
EDUCATION

"I fear for Western Civilization and particularly for the United States. It will be a race between catastrophe and education."

-H. G. Wells

If you will think of the group of boys and girls who were in your class three or four years ago, you will find that many of them are not with you now. Some of them dropped out and went to work. Perhaps they told you what good times they were having with the money they earned. Of course,

FIG. 1.-The Untrained Man. He starts as a boy of fourteen-reaches maximum income at thirty. Since his income is largely dependent on manual dexterity, it falls off at fifty or earlier to a point below self-support. Total earnings from fourteen to sixty, about $45,000. Not more than $2000 is earned in the years that might have been spent at high-school. FIG. 2.-The High-School Graduate. He goes to work at eighteen, passes the maximum of the untrained man, and rises steadily to his own maximum of approximately $2200 at forty. Total earnings from eighteen to sixty, about $78,000. The $33,000 more than that earned by the untrained man represents cash value of high-school course.

FIG. 3. The College or Technical School Graduate. His permanent earnings begin at twenty-two. Since his income is dependent upon his mental ability, it increases instead of diminishes with the years. The average of $6000 at sixty is often surpassed. Total earnings from twenty-two to sixty (not including anything earned during the college period), $150,000.

they forgot to tell you of the long, tedious hours in the store, office, or factory, and of how tired they were at the end of the day. It may be that you wanted to go to work, but were wisely kept in school by your parents.

Perhaps you like school, and are anxious to get all you can out of it. Even if the studies get a bit wearisome at times, there are the refreshing school activities of all sorts. You may have been told that it pays from a money standpoint to get a high-school education. You may have seen careful estimates of the larger salaries earned by high-school graduates as compared with the early "quituates." These estimates have shown how quickly the graduates pass the 'quituates" in total earnings, even though the latter have four or even six years' start of the former.

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Whatever the causes, you and your classmates are still sticking at it, while a very considerable minority have given up the fight. A liking for school life, personal ambition, family influence, the advice of friends who know-for one or more such reasons you are in; and for various reasons the others are out, except perhaps for continuation school.

Would it not be of interest to you to take a good look at what you are doing; to "size it up," and find out what you may expect if you stay at it longer-say until you have at least finished the high school? It is always worth while to know what we are doing and why we are doing it.

A Fair Chance-Equal Opportunities. One of the ideals of our country is that all should have equal opportunity. This seems impossible in a country where the population ranges all the way from millionaires to beggars. Equality of opportunities does not mean, however, that all persons should have equal amounts of money, or land, or jewelry; but rather that each boy or girl, man or woman, should have a fair chance to make his own way in life and to develop his own special talents. To assure every citizen of this equality of opportunity, public schools are supported by the government from money raised by taxing the people of the

community. These schools assure the children of the poor as fair a chance for a good education as the children of the well-to-do.

Training Citizens in the Schools. The public is not interested merely in seeing that every boy and girl shall have a fair chance. In a democracy all kinds of public questions are settled by public opinion. This is another way of saying that the group must think its way through the problems of its group life. If public opinion is to settle these problems wisely, the people must be intelligent. They must not only be able to think, but they must be trained particularly to think about public questions, that is, about questions that have to do with the various community relationships that you are reading about in this book. These problems of community relationships, by their very nature, must be settled by group thinking. That is one reason why such studies as civics are being required more and more in schools.

You will help to settle community questions all your life. Indeed, you are settling questions of your school-community life now. For example, if the public opinion of your class frowns upon the pupil who cheats in a test, it is the kind of public opinion that will secure honest government later. If the public opinion of your school looks upon cheating as clever, it is the kind of opinion that will consider clever the dishonesty in office that cheats the public out of money or service.

The American people are glad to pay taxes to support public schools. They do so not only because their own children can thus secure educational advantages cheaply, but also because the schools are making the community life better for everybody.

The Early School. The Puritans laid the foundations for our system of public common schools as early as 1647. In Philadelphia and in the South public schools developed first as charity schools. The well-to-do in these sections had

tutors for their children at home.

The children of the

poorer families were taught to read and write-if taught at all-in church or charity schools.

These early schools had but one teacher and were ungraded and poorly equipped. They taught the essentials of education, as known in those days: "Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic"-the "Three R's.' Slates were used instead of pencil and paper. The schoolroom was heated by a wood stove, and the fire tended by the older pupils. Each pupil owned his own books, and each set was zealously cared for and handed down from one member of the family to another. Many of the teachers of these early schools knew little more than their pupils.

The Modern School. In all towns and cities and in many rural communities these one-room schools have given place to spacious, many-roomed buildings, well-lighted, wellventilated, and centrally heated. Pens, paper, and books are usually furnished at public expense. The subjects taught include far more than the original "Three R's." School doctors and nurses care for the health of the pupils. Recreation is planned as part of the school program, lunches are often provided at actual cost, and other advantages are being added nearly every year.

A COLONIAL SCHOOLROOM Note the quill pens and the boy in the corner wearing the dunce's cap.

Textbooks, Old and New. A comparison of the textbooks in use shows this progress more than anything else.

The earliest textbook used in the schools of our colonial forefathers was called a "hornbook." This book consisted of two sheets of paper, one on each side of a thin piece of wood. This paper was protected by a covering made of a thin sheet of yellowish horn, which was transparent. On this paper thus protected was printed the alphabet, a few two-letter words, and the Lord's Prayer. The hornbook was only a two-page textbook.

A HORNBOOK The schoolbook of colonial children.

From this there developed the New England Primer, which for over one hundred years was the chief textbook in American schools. About three million copies of this book are said to have been used in this country. Its most characteristic feature was the use of rimes to illustrate each letter of the alphabet.

Two of the most famous of these were:

For the letter "A."

"In Adam's fall

We sinned all."

For the letter "Z."

"Zaccheus he

Did climb a tree
His Lord to see."

Gradually, however, this early primer was supplanted by other textbooks. Poorly printed, illustrated with crude woodcuts, and containing very little information, these books formed the basis of instruction in our early schools.