PUBLIC SCHOOLS
We are going to discuss, for a few moments, the greatest business enterprise
in which you and I are jointly engaged. It is practically a new business, having
been in existence, in a nation-wide way, only about seventy-five years. The
world knew nothing about this business a hundred years ago, and some of our
colonial fathers scoffed at it as something which, if it could be attained, was
not worth the having. As a business, let us analyze it for ourselves, carefully.
A careful analysis is justified. For this business is one which has greater
capital invested than any other enterprise in America. Tremendous amounts of
real estate are owned. Great buildings house the shops. There are officers in
every city and town in the country. An army of directors and workers is
employed. Upon this business is spent the majority of our peace-time taxes. Into
its factories goes the most precious material that our nation yields. Out of it
comes a product, the value of which far exceeds our production of foodstuffs and
manufactures combined.
This business, Fellow Stockholders, is the American Public School System.
The product of this "factory" is the education of our children - your boys
and girls, and mine. Upon this product depends the future of America. We, as a
people, invest more money in it than in anything else in which we are
interested. The system is a corporation - and you and I own and operate it. When
we consider that the high school enrollment jumped from 915,000 to 1,645,000 in
eight years, and that only a little more than seventy-five years ago there were
no high schools in this entire world, we begin to understand how gigantic an
enterprise it is, and how rapidly it is growing.
It is from these points of view that we want to discuss the public school
system. Your child goes through the public school - how does he come out? You
pay more actual dollars and cents for the maintenance and upbuilding of the
public school than you do for any other peace work that you are interested in as
a taxpayer - what dividends do you get back? Your child is graduated from your
high school - and what sort of a job does he get? More important still, what
kind of a job does he hunt for?
We have the right of any stockholder to see what we are getting for our
money. We are going to give credit for every bit of constructive work that
enters into the product. We are going to charge every item which properly
belongs on the debit side of the ledger. We are not going to admit that our
efforts have been vain, these seventy-five years. We are not going to indict the
management, except as we shall find ourselves wanting.
Let us begin our survey.
The community in which we live has invested thousands, hundreds of thousands,
perhaps millions of dollars, in our "plant." Yet that plant is idle more than
three-fourths of the time. We admit that it should be idle a part of the time -
perhaps a little more than half. But when the plant operates on a thirty hour a
week schedule for only thirty-six weeks, is it just to say - as stockholders -
that the idle time is out of proportion to the working hours?
We are not saying that the children and their teachers should put in eight
hours a day, twelve months in the year. We are talking about our "plant" - the
buildings. Are we using them efficiently? Someone may say that they are
specially constructed, that they are not adaptable to the production of other
things. Are we so sure? Could they not be so adapted?
Then let us consider the managers, superintendents, and foreman. They are the
faculty. Assuming that they are proficient, how about the way we handle them?
Would you permit half or more of your foreman and responsible officers to shift
from one plant to the another every year? Would you expect them to be satisfied
and happy in an environment where they were unable to become acquainted with
their neighbors until the year was up, or practically so? Would you care to have
a business in which all your skilled operatives were changing every three years?
Yet this is what happens to your teachers. A large percentage of them shift from
place to place at the end of the school year; they know little of the community
in which they teach until the school year is ended. Does this kind of
organization develop proficiency?
The recent War brought out the woeful lack of even the most elementary
education in many young men of draft age, The percentage of illiteracy was found
to be disgracefully high. Our government had to spend billions in training young
men to understand and obey orders. We paid an immense price to give elementary
education to these adults. Is it sound business sense to allow the next
generation to come out of the schools as ignorant as these adult?
As good as our public school system is, we find that there is a tremendous
economic waste in its administration. Viewed from a business standpoint, can we
afford to let this go on? The Public School system ought in any balanced scheme
of things to link up very definitely, not only with "Higher Education," but with
the home, business, and community life. Failing in this, there is an economic
waste. The percentage of business and professional failures is an index of our
school system. The percentage of failures is too high.
No self-respecting citizen, no stockholder in this great corporation of ours,
needs to be told that the ideals of educated men and women must more and more be
made the ideals of all our people. This is what we ought to mean when we speak
of "Americanism." No thinking man or woman owning a share in this "Company" can
fail to realize that the cost of education is a productive expenditure of money,
that it will pay enormous dividends, and that in no sense of the word is it a
charity!
It needs no argument to prove that the Public School is "Not" a place where
political, religious, or educational "Axes" are to be ground! There should be no
argument to prove that every one of us must understand and appreciate the value
of the public service rendered by teachers. They should know us, and mix with
us, and acquire a practical knowledge of the problems of life which we face, and
which our children must face. And it is infinitely more important that we know
the teachers into whose care we entrust our children. It is worthwhile, from a
dollar and cents standpoint, for us to cultivate them, entertain them in our
homes and make them feel that they are being relied upon, and that they can rely
upon us!
We have spoken of "Americanism." What does it mean? What should it mean to
our children? From this standpoint what are the real needs of the Public School?
"Americanism" means Equality of Opportunity," We live in no feudal age. There
are no Barons or Lords of the Manor who hold us as chattels. Each man and woman
is a human soul, entitled to a fair chance. Inevitably we are bound to each
other by the ties of brotherhood, and the future of our America depends upon the
growing of every boy and girl into a healthy, happy, competent manhood and
womanhood, able to cope with the conditions that a citizen must face. Our Public
School system should fit children to take advantage of their opportunities, and
so make of themselves all that ambition and thrift and character may hope to
attain.
Universal education, more than anything else, must be the goal of our
republic. Upon this rest the foundations of government, for only through
intelligent citizens can our government continue in the years to come.
The ban of factory production is returned goods - goods which have been
improperly manufactured and are sent back to be worked over. Do we realize that
there can be returned goods in our schools? Have we ever stopped to think that
it costs as much to put a child through the same grade twice as it does to put
two children through once? Everything which helps the child to learn quickly is
real economy. Only if a child is healthy will he do the required work. Otherwise
he will hold back his classmates as well as himself. Health becomes the greatest
possible economy and if there were no other grounds for asking that supervision
of health be exercised over all children, this would be enough.
Our Public Schools can succeed only in proportion to the cooperation which
they receive from the community. We have spoken of effective organization. If
this is demanded by the community, we shall get the worth of our money. If a
community demands teachers who believe in public education at State expense, the
demand will be supplied. If the people of a community are determined that
American ideals shall be instilled into the minds of their children, rather that
the vaporing of foreign agitators, the schools in that community will have truly
American teachers.
In return for all this, the community must do its part. We must give the
teacher a place among us. He or she must feel at home with us because they come
into our homes. It is necessary for the teacher to know the home background of
the child if intelligent direction is to be given. We cannot expect wholehearted
work without some measure of appreciation.
How long since you have attended any school activities? The enterprises which
the teacher promotes in order to show the child how to work with other children,
fit him for the part he is going to play in mature activity, and are as
important as the work of the class room. The success of these enterprises
depends upon your support, not only from the standpoint of the money which is
spent, but because the child will have faith in this instruction and will
believe in its importance if we, as parents, show him that we also believe.
These enterprises are the links in the chain which the teacher offers as a tie
between the school and the community. The community must not lose hold of its
end of the chain.
As individuals we have three ways in which we can become a constructive force
for the betterment of the public Schools.
We can do it as voters, supporting measures which benefit the Public Schools,
and voting against the measures which are opposed to their welfare.
We can do it by making our lives touch the lives of those directly connected
with the schools. This does not mean working through a committee or an
association. It means finding out for ourselves what the schools are doing. It
means becoming acquainted with, and learning to know, the aspirations and the
abilities of the teachers who guide the destinies of our children during school
hours.
Finally, we can give our support as parents. The child is a healthy animal as
a rule, and has very little natural desire for an education. We must show him
that the way to success in the world lies down the long road of education. We
must make this road reasonably attractive. We must show him the education is his
greatest asset.
The Public School which brings together the children of the rich and the poor
alike is the one great agency which makes for a responsible citizenship. Our
children must know that the right to go to a Public School has been fought for.
They must know what it costs in terms of money and sacrifice. We must realize
that on the organization and influence of our Public School system depends the
perpetuity of our Republic.
Copyright, 1923, by The Masonic Service Association of the United States of
America. The contents of this Bulletin must nor be reproduced, in whole or in
part without permission. Published monthly by The Masonic Service Association of
the United States under the auspices of its member Grand Jurisdictions.
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