Compulsory education

“ If it was to be said that children of thirteen or fourteen years of age were merely to receive the same education as children of eight years of age, compulsory education would be but tyranny. Therefore, compulsory education involved higher education. ”

“ Then, and not till then, it will be right to talk about compulsory education, because I can imagine nothing more unjust, nothing more unfair upon a child, than to say that a man shall not be allowed to employ the child because he has never been educated, when the State has not placed within the reach of that child the means of education. ”

“ I need not say much to you teachers on the advantages of compulsory education. Almost every child would then be educated, and the education of our country would indeed be national. The poor would not only have—as, alas! too many have now—simply their carnal senses as a means of enjoyment, but their mental faculties would be developed, and the vast storehouses of knowledge to which only educated persons have access, would be open to all. ”

“ There is a loud cry for compulsory education. We English, in spite of constant experience to the contrary, preserve a touching faith in the efficacy of acts of Parliament; and I believe we should have compulsory education in the courses of next session, if there were the least probability that half a dozen leading statesmen of different parties would agree what that education should be. ”

“ Thus boldly did our reformers lay down the principle of compulsory education, which men in our own day have only hesitatingly adopted, but with greater consistency or daring than our contemporaries have yet evinced, for they proposed to apply the principle to the children of the rich and potent, as well as to those of the poor and vicious. ”

“ In the second place, while much has been done since the advent of compulsory elementary education to better the means of education and to increase the facilities for the higher instruction of the youth of the country, there is a widespread belief that all the hopes held out by [Pg 6] the early advocates of universal compulsory education have not been realised, and that our Primary Schools in large measure have failed to turn out the type of citizen which a State such as ours requires for her after-service. ”

“ It is now time to consider the effect of this system of compulsory education upon the masses of the people. In the first two chapters an attempt was made to sketch some of the anomalies brought about by the educational methods of our public schools and universities, and by the pernicious system of public competitive examinations. We will now turn our attention exclusively to the masses, and endeavour to see what national instruction does for them.
The common people labour under the delusion that children who have passed the standards of an elementary school are educated. ”

“ Anyhow, though a sense of the need of compulsory Education has much grown of late, the public mind is not yet sufficiently disabused of the notion that it is an interference with due personal freedom to make compulsoriness a condition of an Educational System. ”

“ That our present educational methods are in many respects faulty, and that there is urgent need of reform in the manner in which the theory of public education is put in practice, I do not deny. The wisdom of compulsory educational laws may be questioned. ”

“ Education.—The public school and kindergarten, free libraries, art galleries and museums, cheap literature, and compulsory education laws would seem, to the casual observer, to leave little need for the philanthropist in the field of education. A philosopher of to-day looks forward to the time when "the object of all free education shall be the emancipation of the individual," and to the time "when general education shall be supplemented by special schools for the special vocations of life." ”

“ Universal education has not proved a panacea for all the social evils of the Commonwealth, and while it must be admitted that much good has resulted from the adoption of universal and compulsory education, yet at the same time certain evils have followed in its train. ”

“ But the answer to this objection is, that a law of compulsory education, if the preferences, ecclesiastical or otherwise, of those parents who show any practical sense of their responsibility are duly respected, is from the beginning only felt as compulsion by those in whom, so far as this social function is concerned, there is no spontaneity to be interfered with; and that in the second generation, though the law with its penal sanctions still continues, it is not felt as a law, as an enforcement of action by penalties, at all. ”

“ There is one aspect of the educational demands of a community which is usually thought of as lying entirely outside the scope of the compulsory-education law. It is ordinarily thought that higher education is a purely individual matter. ”

“ The provisions of this law show how complicated is the social situation with which the community deals in its compulsory laws. The assumption that it is simple to define the necessary schooling for a future citizen is easily refuted by a little consideration. ”

“ The school of life embodies a compulsory education that no man escapes. ”

“ II. COMPULSORY EDUCATION It is useful to recall that for centuries after mankind reached a point where prolonged formal education was available, 199attendance upon instruction was voluntary. Those who wished to learn what could be taught of the arts and sciences, hired tutors. It is true that the public ceremonies may, perhaps, be considered to have represented compulsory education, even in primitive times. ”

“ In all the States there have been established huge and costly mechanisms for the wholesale inculcation of public and private wisdom and virtue. That no child might, through a perverse inclination or parental neglect, wander from the ranks of the droves crowding the public schools, compulsory education has been established. ”

“ In order to give a proper impulse to study, by securing protection for it, some insist that the full control of public instruction should be given to the government of each country, to be carried on by Ministers of State, or public boards; others attach so much importance to the development of the intellectual faculties, that they call for compulsory and gratuitous education, in order to give a great degree of culture to all classes ”

“ Now, we regard the vast amount of ignorance which everywhere exists, as a national misfortune detrimental to the true interests of our country; and strenuous efforts have been made, both in and out of Parliament, to establish a thorough system of national education. The Education Act, recently become law, is a palpable indication of the recognised fact that the people must be educated.
Now I maintain that any scheme originated to educate the poor children of our land, should be universal in its application to them. ”

“ Not by faulty [Pg 24] methods of teaching can it be explained, nor by anything else that teachers have done or have not done. Illiterates have not attended the schools. It is due either to insufficient legislation or to non-enforcement of laws, doubtless more the latter save in the case of adult aliens.
From the very beginning of our colonial life, early in the 17th century, universal education has been a part of both our educational and our governmental creeds. A program of compulsory education was early found necessary, early adopted, and never abandoned. ”

“ And, after all, if we concede to the State power and wisdom to single out 'duly constituted religious' bodies as exclusive alternatives for compulsory secular instruction, it would be logical to also uphold the power and wisdom to choose the true faith among those 'duly constituted.' We start down a rough road when we begin to mix compulsory public education with compulsory godliness. ”

“ No one denies the right of the state to conscript the child for education. But coupled with this assent is the insistence that the education shall be the freest, fullest and most stimulating that we know how to give. ”

“ But it was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled. ”

“ The Nation shall guarantee equal access of children and adults to education, professional training, and culture. The establishment of free, secular, public education on all levels, shall be a duty of the State. ”

“ Thus, taking all these considerations, and even omitting the more special arguments which flow from legal guarantees of individual rights as established in a free community, we may be sure that, upon broad principles of the common weal, the first of the three courses suggested for public schools, in regard to education upon disputed questions of practical moment to the individual and to society, must unfailingly be most pernicious. ”

“ It is my own conviction that a higher order of teaching talent is required in the primary school, or for the early, judicious education of children, than is required in any other institutions of learning. Nor can it be shown that equal ability for government is not essential. ”

“ Now perchance someone might say, as indeed those who administer the present system of education almost without exception actually do say: “What more should one expect of any education than that it should point out what is right to the pupil and exhort him earnestly to it; whether he wishes to follow such exhortations is his own affair and, if he does not, his own fault; he has free will, which no education can take from him.” ”

“ Yet, in general, the educational policy, matters touching the curriculum, and all the discipline of the student body, as almost a matter of divine right, whether or not by custom or by statute, belong to the men whose craft and experience is in lines of education. ”

“ Were the duty of enforcing universal education once admitted, there would be an end to the difficulties about what the State should teach, and how it should teach, which now convert the subject into a mere battle-field for sects and parties, causing the time and labour which should have been spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about education. If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. ”

“ They have trusted to the rules they have learnt and not to the gift of power which is in themselves. They teach as the scribes and not with authority. Let, therefore, the men and women who have this power be those whom the State will train; let it give them not, as at present, a few weeks in a practising school, but experience in a variety of schools in town and in country, and under masters with different systems; let them be made familiar with the last thoughts on child life, and with all the many different theories of education. ”

“ The study of practical life, of obligatory social order, of the inter-relationship of human beings, the avoidance of evil, egotistical examples that plant the seed of evil, and other questions of a pedagogical nature, will head the educational program. This program will differ for each caste, never allowing education to be of a uniform character. ”

“ XLVII. The best theory of civil society requires, that popular schools open to the children of all classes, and, generally, all public institutes intended for instruction in letters and philosophy, and for conducting the education of the young, should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority, government, and interference, and shonld be fully subjected to the civil and political power, in conformity with the will of rulers and the prevalent opinions of the age. ”

“ But, we are told, the public-school system educates the people more rapidly than private education could possibly do—educates a greater number in a given time. Does that settle the question? Does the quality of education, do the moral influences accompanying it, count for nothing? Whether would it be better to give five hundred an education destitute of moralizing and idealizing influences, or three hundred an education penetrated by those influences, trusting to the action of the smaller number to promote social order and harmony? ”

“ The anonymous author argued that the Government should confine its operations to promoting elementary education, leaving all higher education to be organized on the voluntary principle and to be paid for by those who value it. ”

“ How is he to reconcile his own individual rights with his social obligations? These are fundamental questions that deserve careful answer, and that must be made a part of the school curriculum if the community is to enjoy social health. It matters little how such subjects are named in any course of study, but it is essential that the principles of social living should be taught under some title.
A second principle of education is that it should be vocational. The school children, after graduation, must make their own way in the world. ”

“ Which shall college authority be? Authority is necessary, ever-present authority. If the young man’s choice is to become 242 a thing of worth, it must be encompassed with limitations. But as the need of these limitations springs from the imperfections of choice, so should their aim be to perfect choice, not to repress it. To impose limitations which do not ultimately enlarge the youth they bind is to make the means of education “oblige against its main end.” ”

“ “Education is free. The freedom of education shall be enjoyed under the conditions provided by law, and under the supervision of the State.” ”

“ Here also we find, for the first time, the thinkers of the State deeply concerned with the education of the youth of the State, and viewing education as a necessity to make life worth living and secure the State from dangers, both within and without. To prepare men by a severe but simple and honest training to fear the gods, to do honest work, to despise comfort and vice, to obey the laws, to respect their neighbors and themselves, and to reverence the wisdom of their race, was the aim of this old education. ”