Government school

“ While the State, therefore, enforces a general system of public schools, it leaves all the details of local management with the people most closely related to the particular school. The people esteem that which they create and control. ”

“ The school system and its relations to local authorities, on the one hand, and to the general government, on the other, form a vast and difficult subject involving not merely pedagogical principles, but also such aims as the maintenance of higher learning, the dissemination of useful information, and the practice of indispensable arts. In university lectures a few words on such topics suffice, since young men who accept a school position assume, at the same time, obligations which for a long time to come prescribe for them the path they must follow. ”

“ And, first, the high school must be a public school. A public school I understand to be a school established by the public,—supported chiefly or entirely by the public, controlled by the public, and accessible to the public upon terms of equality without special charge for tuition.
Private schools may be established and controlled by an individual, or by an association of individuals, who have no corporate rights under the government, but receive pupils upon terms agreed upon, subject to the ordinary laws of the land. ”

“ The information collected indicates that the teaching of American Government, Civil Government or Civics as it is still barbarously designated, is suffering from a lack of proper recognition in the school curriculum, for want of especially trained teachers, from lack of a working school library on Government and from inadequate text-books. It seems a curious thing that our public schools, which were instituted and are operated by governmental agency to maintain an enlightened citizenship, have taught every other subject excepting Government. ”

“ Convinced that numerous and important advantages would be derived from engaging their pupils in the consideration and in the practice of rules for their own government, from placing restrictions to the powers of the teachers, and from giving to the regulations of the school a permanent form, the proprietors, early in the year 1817, proposed to the school a certain division of powers, together with regulations for their exercise, which, having received the joint assent of teachers and pupils, became the constitutional laws of the school ”

“ The school has rules to govern it, that the pupil may be guided, directed, and protected in the pursuit of knowledge. Schools can not work without order, and there can be no order without government. The members of the school desire that good order be maintained, for they know their success depends upon it; so that school, government, like all other good government, exists by the consent and for the good of the governed.
OFFICERS.--The school, like all other governments, has its officers. ”

“ The increasing influence of more liberal ideas greatly improved the situation with reference to popular education, and the government now makes vigorous efforts to bring its public school system within the reach of all. The constitution provides that free instruction must be provided for the people. ”

“ As it is the duty of the State to offer a plain English education to every child, so it is the duty of all children to make the most of all means the State has provided for their education.
PARENTS, THEIR RIGHTS AND DUTIES.--All parents have the right to send their children to the public school, and it is also their duty to patronize the public school, or some other equally as good. Fathers and mothers who deprive their children of the opportunities of acquiring an education do them lasting injury. ”

“ The private school has its place, and its establishment is encouraged by localities and regarded with favor by the government, but the people, acting as a whole, insist that the school door shall be open to every child born into the country. In the last quarter of a century much advance has been made in the establishment by the public of technical schools, such as law schools, medical colleges, dentistry schools, industrial schools and agricultural colleges. ”

“ The duty of fitting the youth for the services and responsibilities of citizenship in the Republic under the complex conditions which now prevail, belongs primarily to the public school. It has not discharged its highest function until it provides for every child adequate instruction in the government of this country. So far the public school has failed to do this. There are large cities in this country in which no systematic instruction in Government is given in the otherwise splendidly equipped high schools, nor is the subject taught in the grades. ”

“ All teachers, and all seminaries of education, were subjected to the supreme authority of the National University, nor could any school be opened without a brevet or diploma from the Grand Master, upon which a considerable tax was imposed. It was indeed the policy of the government to diminish as far as possible the number of Secondary and of Ecclesiastical Schools, in order that the public education might be conducted at the public seminaries, called Lyceums, or Academies. ”

“ A machinery of government inspectors of schools was organized, and a permanent educational secretary attached to the committee. Not to mention other valuable results, we may add that the establishment of workhouse and factory schools, and the institution of the normal school for training teachers at Kneller Hall, are among the most prominent benefits for which we are indebted to this growing recognition of a care for the extension of general education as one of the duties of government. ”

“ I am quite prepared to say further that those youths who pass through the better class of secondary schools are well entitled to make the claims put forward by the fully-fledged public school boy; and the time is certainly not far distant when such pupils will be everywhere freely admitted to the universities and positions under the government, which has hitherto been the case only with scholars from the public schools—of our present public schools, be it noted! ”

“ But if the rule were adopted, and generally made known, that the chance of a Government appointment would be given by School Managers to such as could shew that they had endeavoured to retain and add to their school instruction, an inducement to study would be found sufficiently powerfid to act upon some thousands, at all events, of the people, and make them strive both to keep what they had got, and to get what more might be essential. ”

“ The role of the Federal Government is to protect and preserve State and local control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, and personnel of educational institutions, schools, and school systems. ”

“ No Secondary School is to be established without the authority of the government. The Secondary Schools and private schools, whose instruction is found superior to that of the Primary Schools, are to be placed under the superintendance and particular inspection of the prefects.
LYCEUMS.
There is to be one Lyceum at least in the district of every tribunal of appeal.
Here are to be taught ancient languages, rhetoric, logic, morality, and the elements of the mathematical and physical sciences. To these are to be added drawing, military exercises and the agreeable arts. ”

“ The future masters for the different lyceums and colleges are all educated in a special school known as the École Normale, founded under the First Republic, and where, according to the government order calling it into existence, the students have not only to receive instruction, but to be taught the art of imparting it. ”

“ Preparatory courses for professional training in the government schools were also made free and secular. As the states have control of the schools within their own boundaries there was at first a great lack of uniformity, but the national system is being generally adopted. ”

“ A general free school system has not been inaugurated, and any man who will coolly, deliberately and wisely consider the condition, associations and changeable nature of the government of our Territory, will see the wisdom of not entering upon such a system until it can be done under the regulations and privileges which a State government would bring. ”

“ Yes, thank heaven, there are at least two—the public school and the public library. Of these, the value of academic freedom to the public school is slight, because the training of the very young is of its nature subject little to the influences of which we have spoken. There is little opportunity, during a grammar school or high school course, to influence the mind in favor of particular government policies and particular theories in science or literature or art. ”

“ For example, a French club would directly relate to the curriculum if a school taught French in a regularly offered course or planned to teach the subject in the near future. A school's student government would generally relate directly to the curriculum to the extent that it addresses concerns, solicits opinions, and formulates proposals pertaining to the body of courses offered by the school. If participation in a school's band or orchestra were required for the band or orchestra classes, or resulted in academic credit, then those groups would also directly relate to the curriculum. ”

“ The adoption of the honor system in examinations would be desirable in American colleges.
4. Final examinations as a test of knowledge should be discontinued in X—— High School (or college) .
5. All American universities and colleges should admit men and women on equal terms.
6. The national government should establish a university near the center of population.
7. The X—— College (or High School) should adopt courses which more definitely fit students for practical careers.
8. Intercollegiate football does not promote the best interests of competing schools. ”

“ Then, supported and fed by, and inspiring all below, should be the college, the school of higher education. Justice to a race long oppressed, obligation to meet more than half way those states that make generous appropriations to this end, and safety to the nation, demand that these should be liberally furnished with such buildings and grounds as health and comfort require, with libraries and apparatus equal to the best, and an efficient corps of teachers, so paid that their best energies may be given to instruction. ”

“ The establishment of the free public high school and the state university represent the crowning achievements of those who struggled to found a state-supported educational system fitted to the needs of great democratic States. Probably no other influences have done more to unify the American People, reconcile diverse points of view, eliminate state jealousies, set ideals for the people, and train leaders for the service of the States and of the Nation than the academies, high schools, and colleges scattered over the land. ”

“ The principle of higher education by taxation of all the people is no longer questioned; it is no longer an experiment. The state university is relied upon to furnish the country with the leaders of the future—and leaders will always be in demand, for they are always sorely needed.
Progress in Normal Schools.—While the state universities have been enjoying this marvelous development, nearly every state has been establishing normal schools for the professional preparation of teachers. The normal school as an institution is also modern. ”

“ Each State plan shall demonstrate that the State has developed and is implementing a single, statewide accountability system to ensure that all public school students graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary education or the workforce without the need for remediation. ”

“ Schools were declared to be essentially civil affairs; their purpose was asserted to be to promote the common welfare and advance the interests of the political State; ministers of education began to be appointed by the State to take over and exercise control; the citizen supplanted the ecclesiastic in the organization of education and the supervision of classroom teaching; the instruction in the school was changed in direction, and in time vastly broadened in scope; and the education of all now came to be conceived of as a birthright of the child of every citizen. ”

“ Though there is much interest in all these higher institutions of learning, as well as in the normal schools and academies, many of which are prosperous and important, yet the common schools more particularly engage the attention of the people and of the successive legislatures, resulting in a complication of school laws scarcely balanced by the improvement in the school system. ”

“ The constitution requires the general assembly to maintain a system of free schools, and enforce the attendance of every child between 5 and 18 years of age for a term equivalent to three years, unless educated by other means. A free school must be kept in each school district for not less than three months during the year. The legislature is also required to establish and maintain a state university, with departments for instruction in teaching, agriculture, and natural sciences, as soon as the public school fund will permit. ”

“ It seems, also, that the examinations are so managed, doubtless partly in deference to public sentiment, that men of higher education are not encouraged to enter. In 1891, 629⁄10 per cent of those who took the examinations on the basis of a common-school education passed, 773⁄10 per cent f those who had been through high school, and only 671⁄10 per cent of the college men. ”