Extension education

“ And the assimilation is still proceeding. All the political changes of the age promote it, since they all tend to raise the low and to lower the high. Every extension of education promotes it, because education brings people under common influences, and gives them access to the general stock of facts and sentiments. Improvements in the means of communication promote it, by bringing the inhabitants of distant places into personal contact, and keeping up a rapid flow of changes of residence between one place and another. ”

“ No educational system can have a claim to permanence, unless it recognises the truth that education has two great ends to which everything else must be subordinated. The one of these is to increase knowledge ”

“ In a public school, therefore, when all classes of the community are to be taught, the truths and exercises should be selected in such a manner, that they shall, if possible, be equally useful to all; leaving the navigator and the agriculturist, the surgeon and the lawyer, to supplement their general education, by the study of those special branches of learning which their several professions require. ”

“ 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. ”

“ EXPANSION OF THE EDUCATIONAL IDEA. In all lands to-day where there is an intelligent government, the education of the people through a system of state-controlled schools is regarded as of the first importance in moulding and shaping the destinies of the nation and promoting the country's welfare. ”

“ What shall we say of this far-reaching modern movement to adapt education to the immediate needs of all people? What shall we say of teaching of trades to the children of elementary schools? What shall we say to the overshadowing of the remotely practical subjects of the secondary-school curriculum by immediately practical courses? ”

“ Most significant among the changes which experience and time have brought to pass has been the development on the educational and social side. Always alive to the importance of general education, but unfortunately so proud of the maintenance of public schools that it was disposed to sneer at any learning not to be acquired at them, the American people—that portion of it which foreigners are so apt to overlook when they attempt to characterize us—is seeking to foster in a variety of ways the opportunities for higher learning, and wider intellectual intelligence. ”

“ We must so reform the curriculum, methods of teaching, and examinations, that we do not mistake the B.A. degree as signifying either a completed liberal education or adequate preparation for earning a living or living a happy life. It should signify only decent preparation for the continuing task of adult education. ”

“ The struggle should be perpetual and in the right direction. First, elevate your common schools so that the education there may be a sufficient basis for a course of training here. If the Normal School and the public schools shall each and all do their duty, candidates for admission will be so well qualified in the branches required, that the art of teaching will be the only art taught here. ”

“ It seemed to me that we teachers had unconsciously elaborated a system which should secure the discipline of the schools and the eagerness of the scholars,—by means of marks, prizes, and the like,—and yet eliminate that knowledge-hunger, itself the quite sufficient incentive to education. ”

“ If we grant the economic ability to support good schools, then the curriculum offered by any type of school, the scope of subject-matter given the pupils to master, is a measure of the educational ideals of those maintaining and using the schools. If the curriculum is broad, and representative of the various great fields of human culture; if it relates itself to the life and needs of its patrons; if it is adapted to the interests and activities of its pupils, it may be said that the people believe in education as a right of the individual and as a preparation for successful living. ”

“ Our educational system no longer assumes that the needs and capacities of all pupils are similar, but attempts so to diversify training that each individual will be enabled to develop his peculiar powers and to contribute to American life in the manner best suited to his individual ability. Taken in its widest sense, education has seven great objectives. ”

“ The provision of education for all, with facilities for children of every class to pass on to higher grades of work, is essential if the latent powers in all, whatever they may be, are to be developed to the utmost. ”

“ The school is a servant, not a master. In that fact lies its greatness—the greatness of its opportunity and of its responsibility. As an institution its object is service—assistance in growth. Development is the goal of education. Virility, efficiency, citizenship, manhood, womanhood—these are its legitimate products. Its tools and formulas are such as will most effectively serve these ends. ”

“ Educational Progress.—One of the landmarks of the present century of progress will be the perfecting of educational systems. Education is no longer for the exclusive few, developing an aristocracy of learning for the elevation of a single class; it has become universal. The large number of universities throughout the world, well endowed and well equipped, the multitudes of secondary schools, and the universality of the primary schools, now render it possible for every individual to become intelligent and enlightened. ”

“ In general terms we may say that our educational system will be made purposive where it is now haphazard, and that it will be brought into definite connection with the economic life of the country. Education will be regarded as a preparation for livelihood as well as for life,—as a training [50] for working citizens rather than for a leisured class. ”

“ There is first the need of public educational machinery, and by education I mean not simply elementary education, but the equally vital need for great colleges not only to teach and study technical arts and useful sciences, but also to enlarge learning and sustain philosophical and literary work. ”

“ The public schools, designed for the general and gratuitous dissemination of knowledge among all classes, have not only increased in number but have generally outstripped those of the higher order, by seizing at once upon all the improvements which the experience of teachers in other parts of the country, and the world, has from time to time suggested. Mere innovations rather hinder than advance the progress of education. ”

“ THE appeal made by Professor Jowett, in the columns of the "Times," for state aid to provincial colleges established to promote "higher education," naturally raises the question how high education for the bulk of mankind ought to go. ”

“ It is for you, wherever you are placed, to seek to establish schools, and to make these schools as efficient as possible, and to help by your example and by your work to make the people believe that what is being done for the education of their children is for their good, that school training sharpens the intellect, strengthens the reason, and produces better manners. ”

“ The present system, in all fields of study, limits the natural capacity of the child in the concentration, the combination, and development of its powers. When it produces its best results, it turns children at the close of their school years into pocket encyclopedias, representing humanity's progress and knowledge. Only when such results as these cease to be called a harmonious development, will it be conceded that the school can and should have no other meaning than to give the child a preparation for continuing, through his whole life, the work of training and education. ”

“ The problem of how to produce as effective and as thorough education for leadership with a one-class school system as with a two- class; the opening-up of opportunity for youth of brains in any social class to rise and be trained for service; the selection and proper training of those of superior intelligence; the elimination of barriers to the advancement of children of large intellectual endowment ”

“ If we could but extend the advantages of the higher education, of college and university training to the majority of the people, then say the advocates of education as a panacea for human ills, we would surely have that approach to the millennium which intellectual development by the diffusion of information can and must give. ”

“ It disciplines the faculties and forms a taste for the acquisition of knowledge, on the part of our young men and women, but it provides no means for their exercise and gratification. It gives them the elementary education requisite for their future callings, but withholds all facilities of access to those boundless stores of recorded knowledge, in every department, by which alone that elementary education can be completed and made effectual for the active duties of life. ”

“ We will promote the revaluation of the teaching career; guaranteeing the initial and continuous training of quality and pertinent with the socio-cultural environments. The recognition and revaluation of the role of teachers, directors of public institutions, establishing incentives that guarantee quality education for all. ”

“ I have advanced a comprehensive plan to strengthen and renew our Nation's schools and education agenda for the 21st century—from reducing class size to improving teacher quality, from modernizing and rebuilding thousands of schools to finishing the job of connecting every library and classroom to the Internet, from putting an end to social promotion to expanding after-school and summer school programs. ”

“ The next generation may see a change, as the Sinhalese of to-day are learning to appreciate the value of education. There are over a quarter of a million children attending the schools provided or supported by the Government, and a beginning has also been made with technical training. ”

“ Can there be a new basis for education? Does the foundation upon which education rests really change? Is the educational system of one age necessarily unfitted to provide for the educational needs of the next? ”

“ In spite of these handicaps the movement toward the introduction of social studies into the general school is now sufficiently under way to be described as one of the most hopeful innovations in the curriculum. ”

“ It may be granted that the progress of learning is made possible or at least accentuated by educational institutions; but the fact remains 77 that the school is founded on pre-existing knowledge. Science, arts, customs must exist before they can be taught to others, and they do exist, but not in the spirit of the one who is to acquire them, who must appropriate them as they are in themselves. ”

“ There will be an elective opportunity for each pupil which will adapt the curriculum to his special needs, but there will be no industrial school on the other side of the street, with a separate course, a different kind of teacher, and a different governing board. Such a cleavage of social interests would be disastrous to the academic subjects quite as much as to the practical subjects. Academic life cannot bury itself in the past; it must make its contribution to the activities of the present. ”

“ If the nation under our charge be regarded in its corporate existence, we shall find that primary education supplies material for secondary education; that advancement of secondary or intermediate education reflects back energy upon primary education; that secondary education leads up to high education, which, again, elevates the tone of everything below it, and supplies the fittest instruments for all other sorts of instruction. National education in its totality may be likened to the beautiful structure in which we are now assembled. ”

“ Enough has been done to show that with authority to collect data on plans and by methods that can now be operated and with aid which should now be appropriated by school boards and teachers' associations, incalculable pedagogic economy could be secured and the scientific and professional character of teaching every topic in upper grammar and high school and even in the early college grades be greatly enhanced. ”

“ The state then must satisfy itself that the means of education are placed within the reach of all, in grades adapted to the varying degrees of intelligence and educational opportunity to be found among a community upon the majority of whose members is imposed the necessity of entering upon the practical business of life at a more or less early age. ”

“ In the second place, this movement recognizes the maturity of pupils in a variety of ways. It adopts a form of discipline which throws responsibility on them. It departmentalizes the teaching and offers electives, thus securing the advantages of specialization. The movement promises to reorganize our whole school system in such a way as to give us a new kind of national education. America has at the present moment a closer approximation to a continuous educational ladder than any other country, but the ladder needs a little splicing. ”

“ We are also of opinion, that admission to places of instruction, which, like the medical and engineering colleges, are maintained by the State, for the purpose of educating persons for special employments under Government, might be made the rewards of industry and ability, and thus supply a practical encouragement to general education, similar to that which will be afforded by the educational service. ”