Voluntary school

“ The last vestige of voluntary support is swept away, and they become in every sense part of the National School system. The burden of their support is thrown upon the public funds. Only in the matter of control and of their religious teaching do they retain anything of their private character. ... They are to be supported out of the public funds. But they constitute a privileged class of schools under private managers, and their chief teachers have to belong to a particular Church and to give instruction in its principles and doctrines. ”

“ On the contrary, if we train children in those aspects of conduct which manifest themselves in the life of the class-room or playing-fields, that training should normally influence the development of the character as a whole. Thus, even those departments of conduct which are not touched by ordinary school-life will be affected by the training received in school, for that education will influence the whole character, from which every voluntary act issues. ”

“ The community should do all they can to help forward this beneficent voluntary scheme of public education, acknowledge their real obligation to the teachers, offer them rooms in their public school buildings, and by the pressure of a sound public sentiment, increase the uniform attendance, particularly from the ignorant and neglected classes. ”

“ In order that this may be economically and efficiently effected, the instruction of the Elementary School should enable the pupil at a certain age to fit himself into the work of the High School, and our High Schools' system should be so differentiated in type as to furnish not one type of such education but several in accordance with the main classes of service required by the community of its adult members. Manifestly such a co-ordination of the means and such a grading of the agencies of education, if not impossible on the voluntary principle, is at least difficult of complete realisation. ”

“ In these days, and in the present condition of the world, when the tender age of childhood is threatened on every side by so many and such various dangers, hardly anything can be imagined more fitting than the union with literary instruction of sound teaching in faith and morals. For this reason, we have more than once said that we strongly approve of the voluntary schools, which, by the work and liberality of private individuals, have been established in France, in Belgium, in America, and in the Colonies of the British Empire. ”

“ It is not so much that we are opposed to Board schools on principle, still less that we disapprove of the national determination that every child shall be educated, which logically leads to some national machinery involving the principle of Board Schools in some form or other,—not so much this, as that we are persuaded that the existence of Voluntary Schools is an unspeakable benefit even to the Board Schools themselves. ”

“ Then it belongs to voluntary agencies, like settlements, churches, and philanthropic and educational societies to give instruction in the essentials of language, civics, industrial training, and character building. For the children the school provides such education, but voluntary agencies may well supplement its secular training with more definite and thorough instruction in morals and religion. It cannot be expected that the immigrant problem will settle itself; at least, a purposeful policy wisely and persistently carried out will accomplish far better and quicker results. ”

“ So far as an opinion can be formed, it would seem that these Training Colleges must always rest upon a voluntary foundation; it is difficult to conceive of their being carried on [Pg 348] upon State principles; you may make religious teaching optional in an elementary day school, and the evil results may be not easily perceptable; but when eighty or a hundred young men or young women are brought together into one home, to lead a common family life with common purposes and prospects, the religious equality principle breaks down ”

“ The right sort of continuation school is now known. Such schools increase yearly in number, and the attendances also increase, but the Committee has been led to the conclusion that voluntary methods alone will not solve the problem. There must be recourse to compulsory powers. In many districts the authorities are apathetic, in other districts voluntary methods are powerless against the ignorance and indifference of the people. ”

“ Their pupils have a sense of being team-mates with the superintendent or principal and so are frequently in his company.
The scope of official jurisdiction is by no means sufficiently wide to cover all the useful points of comradeship in school management. There need to be occasions of voluntary assistance that extend beyond the range of ordinary school routine. This coöperation is unofficial and very powerful in dissipating mild antipathies between teacher and pupil. ”

“ In 1805 the opportunities offered in the private, church, and charity schools were seen by certain of the most prominent citizens to be totally inadequate for a city of seventy-five thousand inhabitants, and a Change of name. ‘Free School Society’ was founded to provide for the boys who were not eligible for these schools. ”

“ Oftentimes, at the first, private societies came forward as volunteers in the task of education, but the states early recognized their duty, and usually established schools as soon as they were deemed practicable, either taking over the existing private school or creating one of their own. After a time, as another stage in their development, the schools were made free by express provision, or have become so to all practical purpose. ”

“ Whether the regulations are made by the students themselves or by a higher power, there must not only be subordination of the whims and caprices of each student to his own higher interests, but there must be subordination of the will of each individual to the common good. No school community could furnish the proper conditions for growth whose members did exactly as they pleased unless each pleased to consider the rights of others as sacred as his own. Whether from alien compulsion or from some inner law, each must make his contribution to the welfare of the whole. ”

“ But, more than this, the school must, so far as it can, train, foster and direct the physical and moral forces of every individual child towards his highest individual development.
The boys who enter a counting-house or factory, the girls who take service in a shop or kitchen, the citizens who, in uncounted ways, maintain their communities and support the sovereign state, must, as a rule, know how to read, write and cipher. To do these things well counts greatly in their favor. That so many do not do them well is a serious charge against the public school. ”

“ No question is raised concerning the power of the State reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare. ”

“ But the state, the family, and the church still exercise an indispensable educative influence on various departments of conduct; and from the point of view of education it is unwise for the school to try to arrogate to itself the complete control and education of childhood. It must be recognised that all the institutions have their proper contribution to make to the education of the young; and whatever experiments we make in education we should be careful that the school does not encroach upon the educational functions proper to the other institutions and most efficiently performed by them. ”

“ The daughter of the hired man "spelled down" the farmer's son in the district school; the poor country boy and girl earned their board and tuition at the academy by doing chores; American colleges made no distinctions between "gentlemen commoners" and common folk; and as our public school system developed its kindergartens, its primary, grammar, and high schools, free to any child living in the United States, irrespective of his father's health, social status, or citizenship, we might well be excused for thinking that the last word in democratic education had been spoken. ”

“ They want not only the careful schooling that will correct the lack which prevents them from going to work, but, more than that, the home visiting which shall explain the need for this further training and arouse interest in the connection between school and work.
The best example of volunteer social service in connection with the public schools is that which for several years has been carried on by various outside agencies interested in linking more closely the school and the home, but always limited to work with the regular grades. ”

“ In every case—even of discipline—he is bound to follow the command and the example given him by his Father and Master in heaven, not to chastise his offspring for his "own pleasure," but for the "child's profit." The rule therefore which ought to regulate the parent, and of course the Educationist, in making choice of the subjects and exercises for the school, is, that they shall really and permanently conduce to the pupil's welfare and happiness, irrespective of the conflicting interests or wishes, either of the teacher, the parent, or the public. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But if our national service is to be educational, we already have the organization in existence. The rapidly consolidating public school systems in the states provide the machinery for such an organization. As the public schools become better places for children to spend their time in, we are growing less tolerant of the forms of schooling outside of the public system. The tendency is towards the inclusion of all children in the public school. And the progressive states are requiring schooling up to the full age of sixteen years. ”

“ Each has its own work to do, and neither has been given any authority over the other. At the same time each depends upon the other, neither being able to do its own work without the other's assistance. They should work hand in hand, each assisting the other in every possible way to realize its largest usefulness to the community and the State. In general, the high school should send its students to the university well equipt to do the lines of work for which they respectively apply. ”

“ And I repeat that if the time has come when pupils of state-supported schools, kindergartens, grammar schools, or high schools, can defy and flout orders of school officials to keep their minds on their own schoolwork, it is the beginning of a new revolutionary era of permissiveness in this country fostered by the judiciary. ”

“ The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us a free nation; therefore the state or nation, or both combined, should support free institutions of learning sufficient to afford to every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education. ”

“ The government of the school should be made to rest as far as possible on the consent and co-operation of the governed. That school which does not secure on the part of the scholars a willing acceptance of the system of restraints which is necessary for the good of the whole, is a failure. ”

“ What was good in the old domestic training for individual life-work we are trying to put into the school, and what is needed for skill and leadership in the modern industrial order we are trying to put into the college and university. This means not only that the family rule is less deferred to in the education of even the youngest child, it also means that if we would save the family influence in education we must bring the parents and teachers together in council and in united control as never before. ”

“ Free school system.—Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools and shall adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education. ”

“ By sending better teachers into the public schools, you will effectually aid in the removal of this difficulty. The Normal School is, then, no substitute for the high school, academy, or college. Nor do we ask for any sympathy or aid which properly belongs to those institutions. ”

“ Without recourse to such compulsion the state is free to compel attendance at school and require teaching by instruction and study of all in our history and in the structure and organization of our government, including the guaranties of civil liberty which tend to inspire patriotism and love of country. ”

“ Without question, the curricula of the public school should be modified so as to meet the needs of all the boys in the community and vocational and industrial training should have larger place in our educational plans. The boy who is to earn his livelihood by his hands and head should receive as much attention and intelligent instruction as the boy who aims at a professional career. However, with all its limitations, the public school is the only institution which has a definite policy in the education of the boy. ”