State education

“ Yet thousands annually complete their school education, who have never devoted any time to the study of the principles of the government in which they are soon to take a part--who become invested with political power without the preparation necessary to exercise it with discretion. The schools are regarded as the nurseries of our future statesmen. They share largely in the bounty of the state; yet few of them render in return even the rudiments of political science to those who are to become her legislators, and governors, and judges. ”

“ On the administrative side is a whole group of problems relating to forms of organization: the proper educational relationships between the State and its subordinate units; the development of a state educational policy: the types of instruction the State must provide, and compel attendance upon; questions of taxation and support, compulsory attendance, and child labor; the training and oversight of teachers for the service of the State; problems of child health and welfare; the provision of adequate and professional supervision ”

“ The State, as State, will desire the education of all its citizens. The State, as State, will recognize that the education which it desires means not only the acquisition of knowledge but also, and even more importantly, a real training of moral character. ”

“ To-day general education is an instrument of government, and is rightfully regarded as a prime essential to good government and national progress. With the spread of the democratic type the importance of the school is enhanced, its control by the State becomes essential, its continued expansion to include new types of schools and new forms of educational opportunities and service a necessity, the study of its organization and administration and problems becomes a necessary function of government, while the training it can give is dignified and made the birthright of every boy and girl. ”

“ To education more than to any other agency we are to look as the resource for the advancement of the people in the requisite knowledge and appreciation of their rights and responsibilities as citizens, and I desire to repeat the suggestion contained in my former message in behalf of the enactment of appropriate measures by Congress for the purpose of supplementing with national aid the local systems of education in the several States. ”

“ Deciding clearly where the nation was to go and the route it was to follow, and that education for national ends was one of the important means to be employed, the different parts of the educational systems in the States—elementary schools, secondary schools, universities, normal schools, professional schools, technical schools, continuation schools— were carefully integrated into a unified state system, thoroughly national in spirit, and given a definite function to perform in the work which the Nation set itself to carry through. ”

“ I dare claim for the nation an education which depends only on the State, because it belongs essentially to the State; because every State has an inalienable and indefeasible right to instruct its members; because, finally, the children of the State ought to be educated by the members of the State." (La Chalotais.)
[6] "Education cannot be too widely diffused, to the end that there may be no class of citizens who may not be brought to participate in its benefits. It is expedient that each citizen receive the education which is adapted to his needs." (Rolland.) ”

“ Lastly, if we understand the true nature and function of the State, we need have no fear that the State should [Pg 45] control the education of all the people. What we have to fear on the one side is the bureaucratic control of education, and on the other its control and direction by one class in the interests of itself. The State exists for—the reason of its very being is to secure—the welfare of the individual, and the State approaches its perfection when its organisation is fitted to secure and ensure the widest scope for the full and free development of each individual. ”

“ Or an inquiry might be made as to whether the educational system of the country, which should remain under exclusive state jurisdiction, is well adapted to the extremely complicated purpose of endowing its various pupils with the general and special training most helpful to the creation of genuine individuals, useful public servants, and loyal and contented citizens of their own states. In this matter of education the state governments, particularly in the North, have shown abundant and encouraging good will ”

“ Public education, therefore, under regulations prescribed by the government, and under magistrates established by the Sovereign, is one of the fundamental rules of popular or legitimate government. If children are brought up in common in the bosom of equality; if they are imbued with the laws of the State and the precepts of the general will; if they are taught to respect these above all things ”

“ An education established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence. ”

“ The constitutional provisions, and even the legislation, often were in advance of what the States, impoverished as they were by the War of Independence, could at once carry out, but they mark the evolution in America of a clearly defined state theory as to education, and the recognition of a need for general education in a government whose actions were so largely influenced by the force of public opinion. ”

“ In its stead there was certain to arise a newer conception of the school as an instrument of that form of organized society known as the State, and maintained by the State to train its future citizens for intelligent participation in the duties and obligations of citizenship, and for social, moral, and economic efficiency. ”

“ By the formation, not of Denominational and Corporation schools at a charge which places them out of the reach of all save the richer among us, but by the formation of Public State schools that provide a secondary education as good, and, we will hope, better, than that of these others, and at a charge that is within the reach of the average upper-class people. ”

“ In some countries the entire control of all forms of education, primary, secondary, and technical, has come under the guidance of the State, and in our own country elementary education is now largely under the control of the State authorities, and the other forms of education tend increasingly to come under this control. ”

“ By this means the control of education by the State will become more and more the control of the people by themselves and for themselves, and the chief function of officials and inspectors will then be to advise central and local authorities how best to realise the educational aims desired by the common will of the people. ”

“ It follows directly that the State is, simply and solely, the supreme educational institution, the university to which all other institutions are but preparatory. And two more conclusions follow: (1) that states will differ in constitution with the different educational needs of the peoples among whom they exist, and (2) that, since all education is but a preparation for some worthy activity, political education, the life of man as a citizen, is but a preparation for the highest activity, which, because it is highest, must necessarily be an end in itself. ”

“ Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. ”

“ As one state after another has been admitted to the Union, extending it over a vast extent of country, a system of public education has been adopted in each, ranging from the rural school to the state university. The system in every state is quite complete and more or less efficient to accomplish its objects. The entire system is due to the presence of the Bible in our land, and especially during the formative period of our government. The states have deemed it necessary to train the young and rising generation in the interest of good government and progress. ”

“ The control of education has passed from private parties and even quasi-public societies to the state. The schools have likewise come to be supported by the state, and are open to all children alike without the imposition of any financial obligation. ”

“ The mutual loyalty and responsibility, consequently, embodied and inculcated in a national school, depends for its efficient expression upon the amount of insight and intelligence which it involves. The process of national education means, not only a discipline of the popular will, but training in ability to draw inferences from the national experience, so that the national consciousness will gradually acquire an edifying state of mind towards its present and its future problems. ”

“ Every state should have the best educational system which an intelligent government can provide. The physical, moral and mental faculties should be cultivated in harmonious unison, and that system of education is the best which will effect these objects. Congress has already provided for the support of common schools. In addition to this, I would recommend the legislature to ask congress to donate land lying in this territory for the establishment of a university, embracing a normal, agricultural and mechanical school. A university, thus endowed, would be a blessing to our people ”

“ And it would seem that the real question for England and America to answer is. Will voluntary, individual, or associated parental authority at all times sustain the education required by the state? And still further. Will the education furnished by voluntary effort be equal to the demands of the successive generations as they come and go? To provide this, some authority must interpose some organized system of supervision, as active and continuous as the life of the government, and. as extensive as the demands of the generations passing through the required course. ”

“ It is a group of State school systems, having in the aggregate a certain National character. We cannot insist too strongly that education is primarily a concern of the States. This group of State school systems represents a combination of public and private agencies, for our State institutions are supplemented by many institutions privately supported and controlled. It represents an extraordinary unity as between elementary education and the higher education, as between the democracy of the lower schools and the science of the universities. ”

“ The central national supervisory authority has been still further strengthened; the compulsion to attend greatly extended; and the voice of the State has been uttered in a firmer tone than ever before in English educational history. Taxes have been increased; the scope of the school system extended; all elements of the system better integrated; laggard local educational authorities subjected to firmer control; the training of teachers looked after more carefully than ever before; and the foundations for unlimited improvement and progress in education laid down. ”

“ CONTROL OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.—In the United States education is a state rather than a national function. There is no Federal administration of schools, each state having its independent system. Each state has a system of elementary education, and nearly every state has a secondary or high school system. ”

“ Professional education is under the State auspices and control. The normal schools and the agricultural schools belong to the State. The public high school provides intermediate instruction. The common district school, supported jointly by local taxation and State subvention, gives elementary education to the children of all classes. ”

“ New features of the common schools, such as efficient teachers for the rural districts, 326 county supervision, state normal training, and free higher education in state universities, have gradually rendered the state systems more consistent and complete. ”

“ and a primary object of such a national institution should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing on its legislature than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country? ”

“ In time, though, the desirability of common, free, tax- supported, non-sectarian, state-controlled schools became evident to a majority of the citizens in the different American States, and as it did the American State School, free and equally open to all, was finally evolved and took its place as the most important institution in the national life working for the perpetuation of a free democracy and the advancement of the public welfare. ”

“ Basic to the efforts toward economic expansion and the growth of social benefits to the common man is the proper education of the citizenry. It was toward this objective that the Department of Education formulated policies and imple­mented measures to improve the quality of instruction and to strengthen the curricula in all levels of instruction. ”

“ With the development of democratic government there has everywhere been a softening of old laws, the growth of humanitarianism, the wider and wider extension of the suffrage, important legislation as to labor, a previously unknown attention to the poor and the dependents of society, a vast extension of educational advantages, and the taking over of education from the Church by the State and the erection of the school into an important institution for the preservation and advancement of the national welfare. ”