Free and Useful Education

Free and Useful Education BY E. G. PETERSON, DIRECTOR EXTENSION DIVISION, UTAH AGRI- CULTURAL COLLEGE [This article is appropriate at this time of the year, when college and other school work has just hegun. The author maintains that "this is the time for all to scrutinize closely those human institutions which have been so long in the making, and which the great war, with its attendant reorganization, and our general tendency, toward radical, if not reckless re-adjustment, may seriously jeopardize. The public school system of America is of such power for good that only the most careful consideration would justify us in radically modifying or readjusting it. The end should be carefully considered from the beginning, before any such action is taken." — -Editors.] The public school system of America may well be called the most powerful institution in the commonwealth, because the main business of a democracy is education. The public schools have again begun the year's work without visible celebration. To be sure the event is an important one in the excited minds of the youth, even at college age, who have failed yet fully to grasp the tremendous necessity of mental training under especially modern conditions of business enterprise. Yet the people in general have come to accept the yearly opening of our colleges, high schools and grades, as a matter of fact and, possibly, as the years pass, to ascribe less and less significance to the event. The public school system of America now includes three great units : the grammar grades, the high schools and the colleges. As a powerful supplement to these there exist, in the richer centers, various privately endowed institutions which have come to exer- cise an enormous influence in the fields which are not so im- mediately practical as those covered by the public school system. The rich, endowed institutions are coming to be the largest con- tributors in pure science and in the standardizing of our learning. They are not impelled by a practical minded constituency to orient their work with respect to immediate needs ; they thus fill an important place in American education, which would without them tend to become too immediately concerned with only the problems at hand. Another large group of institutions are those of an ec- clesiastical nature, where are trained the religious leaders in the various denominations. These institutions are frequently most powerful agencies, as in our own state, in the carrying forward of educational ideals. Both the endowed institutions and the church

28 IMPROVEMENT ERA schools may be elementary, intermediate or advanced, or a combi- nation of these. It should be, and probably is, a prime consideration, with Americans, to husband and jealously guard their public schools. The blessing- of free education has not come in a day ; it has taken many thousands of years to develop to its present state of sympathetic connection with the needs of the people. Since the day when all learning was confined within the walls of monasteries, and similar carefully guarded sanctuaries, countless brave and hard- working men and women have toiled and suffered to produce our present standards and ideals. Consider, in America, the wonder- ful potentiality of the system. A very large percentage of the youth of America attend the grammar schools. Here, where the soul of our democracy resides, the young are taught idealism ! They drink, without restraint, of the fine traditions of mankind and hear of the noble deeds of history. They feel, under the most perfect conditions of freedom and lack of prejudice, probably vaguely btit nevertheless indelibly, the breath of civilization. As they go higher they see the fine thread which connects all the world and all time in a pathetic and wonderful story of conquest against evil. They read the noblest that has been written ; they begin to dream great dreams ; their souls charge valiantly the great summits of the unknown ; they feel keenly the drama of life and they wish ardently to play a noble part ! To be sure this idealism and nobility of thought which the school gives them, if it gives them anything, must be adjusted in high school and college, if the young man or woman goes on, or in practical life if he enters the work of the world immediately, as ninety-five of every hundred do. The growing mind sees the necessity of common work and must somehow fit himself into the world as it is. He therefore must begin to plan in a very ordinary and matter-of-fact way for his job in a world of men who work long hours and care most for what he is able to do to increase the output. But he does not forget the idealism of his early days, he thinks of it as he goes from work, he confides it to those he holds most high in his mind. Even the seemingly hard-souled man who rules the factory or farm, or business house or other human institution where he works, when the day is done, dreams again of his ideals, of a world as it should be, not as it is. What a freshening of the spirit; what a bulwark is this to a nation or state in time of stress that their citizens are dreamers, after work- ing hours! Bless the public school and the tiny souls who teach the nation its A B C's and its three R's, and say first the wonderful things about truth, virtue, honor, patriotism, sacrifice and reverence. We are free men and women, but we should realize that such institutions as our elementary schools, high schools and colleges

FREE AND USEFUL EDI CATION 29 are sacred in that the blood and thought of men over countless ages have been given that we may be so blessed. We should guard them carefully, always insisting that they live up to the faith which we give to them. They must not falter in their teaching of truth, they must not become the home of henchmen ; snobbery of mind or social disposition must never again find place in them. They must live close to the people, feeding the souls of the men and women, who come and go, with the finest thought of the race. They must not look down upon those about them ; they must live the life and breathe the aspiration of the men and women who toil. They must not talk of classes and think that one is greater than another, except by his service to others. While they should teach men and women to dream by showing them what the world's best children have done, they should prepare them for productive occupation. They should make them creative citizens, primarily men and women who become skilled instruments in the production of food, the manufacture of food and machines, the adjusters and administrators of business enterprise, reclaimers of waste places, and women trained in the nurturing of families. All this is the privilege of the school. And to the teacher is given the great privilege of awakening to new life great mentalities, nurtured by clean and powerful blood strains, which the injustice of the ages has held down in ignorance and sometimes unwholesomeness. While our schools and colleges have become free so that all may enter, they must become practical so that all will wish to enter. They teach now the common, fundamental things and are developing a new type of citizen who thinks less of the frills of our civilization and more of the few simple, underlying things which make civilization possible. In the new civilization there are two figures which loom large — the farmer and the housewife. For- gotten through all the ages these two figures have come down the least defiled, the guardians always of purity, the defenders always of righteousness. They have come to a place of great honor. Today we have crowned them with the crown of our most sacred consideration. They comprise the majority of our citizenship, they build our churches and schools. Cities are possible only because they feed from them. Is the time not ripe when the best which our civilization af- fords should be laid at their feet? Should we not rather hasten to shape our schools and our colleges to their needs ? Let us no longer falsely decorate our lives with things that do not count in the last analysis. Let us openly and in straight-forwardness build our civilization upon the soil. LOGAN. UTAH