CHAPTER III

EDUCATION AS A PUBLIC NECESSITY

THE PRIMITIVE ATTITUDE ONE OF NEGLECT

One does not have to go far from the door of any educational institution to find people who look on reading and writing—to say nothing of higher forms of education—as luxuries rather than necessities. There is the parent who is willing to take his child out of school for the sake of the wage which the child can earn. There is the negligent parent, often himself illiterate, who is utterly unconcerned about the education of his sons and daughters. Another kind of example appears in the boy or girl who goes out into the trades after a limited schooling and fails to keep up the type of intellectual activity which was cultivated in the school. Many a child who has been taught through years of instruction how to read makes very little use of his training in mature life.

An appeal to the history of civilization reveals the fact that there was a time when the opinion prevailed that education was unnecessary for the common man. The earliest schools were for the aristocracy and for the professional classes. Schools for all the people are of comparatively recent date.

COMPULSORY EDUCATION

In striking contrast with this attitude of neglect and indifference is the fact that to-day there are laws in all the civilized countries of the world compelling children of every social grade to attend school. Society as a whole does not share the slight esteem of reading exhibited by the man who takes his child out of school. Indeed, society has gone so far as to set aside that man’s judgment and to assume control of the child to the extent of insisting that the rudiments of an education shall be made universal.

Society still leaves it to the individual to decide whether he is to study higher branches. One may take algebra or not as one elects, but not so with arithmetic. The common interests of our common life dictate that everyone shall be able to count and to make accurate numerical statements. People must know some arithmetic; they must be able to read, or they are a menace to public comfort and safety.

COMPULSION OF COMMUNITIES

The full acknowledgment of the fact that education is a public necessity has developed gradually. History shows us the steps by which this fact has been recognized in legislative action. The first step was the adoption of laws requiring communities to provide schools. We may put the matter in terms of contemporary conditions by referring to communities which would to-day be backward in this matter if it were not for state control. Thus there are sparsely settled districts or poor districts which cannot afford good schools, or, indeed, any kind of a school. The state is vitally interested in seeing to it that the untoward conditions in these regions do not deprive the children of an education. In the later years of their lives the children from these districts will surely scatter to other parts of the state. They will be less productive than they would have been if they had been educated. It is much more economical for the state as a whole to take a hand in the training of the children than to have to support even a small number of dependent adults during the unproductive period of later life when the consequences of poor schooling appear.

In some cases the delinquency of a community is due not to economic stress but to shortsighted frugality. Here again the higher authority of the larger community must take control and force the backward group to give the children such training as will bring them to reasonable productivity.

The earliest legislation on this matter is of the type which was quoted in the last chapter, where reference was made to the Connecticut law of 1650. Such legislation was addressed to the community and enjoined on it the obligation to provide schools.

LATER STAGES OF COMPULSORY LEGISLATION

Such compulsion of the community was followed, but at a much later date, by legislation compelling the child to attend school; and finally the period was reached in the midst of which we live to-day, when the state is taking a hand in the supervision of schools for the purpose of insuring as high and as uniform a grade of education as it can afford.

AMERICAN EDUCATION TO 1850

The first period of our national life, during which we were very gradually evolving the conception of a need for public education and were setting up the requirement of schools in every community, extended down to the decade before the Civil War. Professor Cubberley has given a very illuminating description of this period, from which we may quote the following extracts:

During the early decades of the nineteenth century, schools and the means of education made little progress. There were among the founders of our states certain far-seeing men who wished for general public education, but it was well along toward the middle of the century before these men represented more than a hopeful minority in most of our states, and in the South little was done until after the Civil War....

To be illiterate was no reproach, and it was possible to follow many pursuits successfully without having received any other education than the education of daily work and experience. A large proportion of the people felt that those who desired an education should pay for it. As the Rhode Island farmer expressed it to Henry Barnard in 1844, it would be as sensible to propose to take his plough away from him to plough his neighbor’s field as to take his money to educate his neighbor’s child. Others felt that at most free education should be extended only to the children of the poor, and for the rudiments of learning only. Still others felt that all forms of education would be conducted best if turned over to the various religious and educational societies of the time. A system of public instruction maintained by general taxation, such as we to-day enjoy, would not only have been declared unnecessary, but would have been stoutly resisted as well. The best schools, and often the only schools, were private schools supported by the tuition fees of those who could afford to use them, and most of these were more or less directly under church control.

Not until after the beginning of the nineteenth century was education regarded at all as a legitimate public function....

The different humanitarian movements which arose after 1820, and which, among other things, demanded public tax-supported schools for all, had not as yet made themselves felt. The people were poor, and indifferent as to education.

Gradually, and only after great effort, this condition of apathy and indifference was changed to one of active interest, though the change took place but slowly, and differed in point of time in different parts of the country. The Lancastrian system of monitorial instruction (by which a single teacher with the assistance of his best students, called monitors, taught hundreds of pupils), introduced into this country from England about 1806, for the first time made an elementary school training for all seem possible, from a financial point of view....

The idea that free education was a right, and that universal education was a necessity, began to be urged and to find acceptance. The land grants of Congress to the new states for the benefit of common schools greatly stimulated the movement. The published reports of those who had visited Pestalozzi’s school in Switzerland, and had examined the new state school system in Prussia, were extensively read. The moral and economic advantages of schools were set forth at length in resolutions, speeches, pamphlets, magazines, and books.

* * * * *

Just when this change took place cannot be definitely stated. Roughly speaking, it began about 1825 and was accomplished by 1850 in the Northern states. It was a gradual change rather than a sudden one, though rapid advances were at times made. The movement everywhere was greatly stimulated by the educational revival inaugurated by Horace Mann in Massachusetts in 1837. In the Southern states, with one or two exceptions, little was accomplished until after the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period were over. Almost everywhere it took place only after prolonged agitation, and ofttimes only after a bitter struggle. The indifference of legislatures, the unwillingness of taxpayers to assume the burdens of general taxation, the small sense of local responsibility, the satisfaction with existing conditions, the old aristocratic conception of education, the pauper and charity-school idea, and frequently the opposition of denominational and private schools,—all of these had to be met and overcome. The referendum was tried in a number of states, and sometimes more than once; in others, the question of free schools became a vital political issue....

By 1850, the principle of tax-supported schools had been generally accepted in all of the Northern states, and the beginnings of free schools made in some of the Southern states. Six state normal schools had been established, a number of states had provided for State Superintendents of Common Schools and for ex-officio State Boards of Education, and the movement for state control of education had begun. It may be said that it had not become a settled conviction with a majority of the people that the provision of some form of free education was a duty of the state, and that such education contributed in a general way, though just how was not at that time clear, to the moral uplift of the people, to a higher civic virtue, and to increased economic returns to the state. A new conception of free public education as a birthright of the child on the one hand, and as an exercise of the state’s inherent right to self-preservation and improvement on the other, had taken the place of the earlier conception of schools as merely a coöperative effort, based on economy, and for the instruction of youth merely in the rudiments of learning.[9]

COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE

The second stage in the development of a public educational system was reached when the states began to see that children must be compelled to go to school. In 1852 Massachusetts passed the first compulsory-education law. In 1864 the District of Columbia followed. In 1867 came Vermont; in 1871, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Washington.[10] From that time on the other states have been enacting such laws. The Southern states, which before the Civil War had practically no public-school system and after the war were economically depressed, were the last to pass compulsory-attendance acts.

Without attempting to deal with the remoter historical development of such legislation, it is possible to show by reference to contemporary reports the difficulties in securing and enforcing such laws. Two quotations from the reports of the Commissioner of Education of the United States indicate the present conditions with regard to compulsory attendance. The report of 1915 makes the following statement:

The year 1915 was a notable year for the cause of compulsory school attendance. Four States—South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Texas—which did not have laws on the subject, enacted laws at the last sessions of their legislatures. This new extension of the compulsory attendance area carries required attendance at school into the section where it has hitherto met the most stubborn resistance; the area now practically includes the entire United States, Georgia and Mississippi alone remaining without laws on the subject.[11]

The report of 1916 supplements this statement as follows:

Efforts were made to secure the enactment of attendance laws in both of these States [Georgia and Mississippi] in 1916, and in the former the effort was successful. The new law of Georgia, in brief, requires the attendance of every child between 8 and 14 years of age for four months each year. Exemptions from this requirement apply to those who have completed the fourth grade of school work; those upon whom needy members of the family are dependent for support; those whose parents or guardians are unable to provide the necessary books and clothing, unless the same are otherwise provided; those whose services are needed for farm emergencies; those who are mentally or physically incapable; and those who reside more than 3 miles from school. Boards of education of counties and of cities and towns are intrusted with the enforcement of the law in their respective jurisdictions.[12]

OBSTACLES TO ENFORCEMENT OF COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE

The enactment of laws is only one step in securing attendance. Especially is there difficulty where local authorities are intrusted with the enforcement of the laws. The records of school operations in the Northern states show that compulsory education was not really enforced until in the ’80’s and later. The sort of difficulty encountered is clearly illustrated by a clipping from the _Statesman_, a daily paper of Austin, Texas, which sets forth the situation late in 1916 under the Texas law, which was then just beginning to be effective.

The compulsory school attendance law will be effective during the coming year. The compulsory term of the first year of the law’s operation will be three months, or 60 school days, and the board of trustees of each school has the authority to specify the months during which attendance shall be compulsory. The Austin City School Board has ruled that the compulsory term shall begin January 1.

The matter of providing truant officers has not yet been dealt with, either by the City School Board or by the County Board of Education. The law provides $2 a day as remuneration to the truant officer for the time actually served by him. The City Superintendent believes that the logical procedure for the city will be to secure the services of the county probation officer, provided it is found practicable for him to take on the additional duties.

The County Board of Education meets next Monday and will probably discuss this matter. It cannot act, however, except on the petition of fifty citizens. In case no such petition is presented, the County Superintendent says that it will devolve on each school principal to report to the County Superintendent those children who are not in school, and she can call on any peace officer to execute the law. It is not thought likely that the probation officer will find it possible to act as truant officer for the county.

The reason why the beginning of the compulsory period was placed so late as January 1 is that many of the children likely to be affected—largely Mexicans and negroes—will be needed in the cotton patch during the fall. Also in the city, many poor boys and girls will be able to earn something during the Christmas holidays. There are serious objections to the plan, however, since the child who enters school so late in the session will be at a serious disadvantage, and the extra attention he will demand of the teacher will work a hardship on the other pupils. Moreover, in the city the school session is divided into two equal periods, the first of which ends only a month after the child is required to begin attendance. This will involve serious difficulties.

The compulsory attendance law applies to children eight to fourteen years of age, with certain exceptions. The compulsory term the second year will be eighty days, the third year 100 days.

Defective children are exempted; also rural children more than 2½ miles from a school, and on the written statement of a parent that the services of her child of twelve years or more who has reached the fourth grade are needed for the mother’s support, such a child may be exempted.

Even a casual reading of this quotation calls attention to the fact that there is the keenest competition between employment and education. The modern industrial system finds children profitable for certain purposes and uses them. If society is to enforce its judgment that these children ought to be in school, that judgment will have to express itself in mandatory terms. The federal government has recently taken a hand in the matter. It is difficult or impossible in some states to get suitable legislation against the exploitation of child labor by unprincipled employers. State legislatures have too often shown themselves subservient to the dictates of such employers. In 1916 the Congress of the United States passed a law restricting child labor in all trades which produce commodities intended for use in interstate commerce. This federal law is another expression of the judgment of civilization that childhood is a period which should be devoted to education.

It is also shown in the Texas quotation that the machinery for keeping account of children is complicated. The ordinary school authorities cannot deal with the matter without adding attendance officers to their staff. These officers must be supplied with adequate information. This in turn calls for a special school census, because the ordinary national enumeration and even the state and city enumerations are not frequent nor complete enough. One of the most progressive of the New England states has recently adopted legislation looking to the creation of a more adequate system of records. This new law is described in the Commissioner’s Report of 1916 as follows:

In order to facilitate the enforcement of its attendance law, Massachusetts provided in 1916 for the registration of minors. City and town school committees are required under the new law to ascertain the name, age, and other essential facts respecting every child between 5 and 7, between 7 and 14, and between 14 and 16 years of age, and respecting minors over 16 years of age who cannot read and write. A card giving these data must be kept for every child or minor. The attendance officer is required to examine these cards and see that children attend school as required by law. Supervisory officers of private schools must within 30 days report the enrollment of children of compulsory attendance age, and when any child withdraws from school must report the same within 10 days.[13]

NEWER LEGISLATION RECOGNIZING COMPLEXITY OF PROBLEMS OF ATTENDANCE

Definitions of the period of compulsory attendance are usually based on the number of grades in the elementary school. Laws commonly specify the age of beginning as six and fix the age of fourteen as the upper limit. Sometimes the age of beginning is higher. For example, the 1915 law in South Carolina is thus described by the Commissioner of Education:

The 1915 act of South Carolina is a local option law. Upon petition of a majority of the qualified electors of a district or “aggregation of districts,” the county board of education is required to declare the law in effect in such district or districts, or, on petition of one-fourth of the electors, an election must be held to determine the matter. All children between the ages of 8 and 14 who are physically able and who reside within 2½ miles of school are required to attend for the full term, or at least for four months. Children between the ages of 14 and 16 are required to attend unless lawfully employed or if they can not read and write simple English sentences.[14]

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.

In the first place, pupils do not go through the elementary schools without interruption; hence the mere specifying of a given age such as fourteen is not enough. Non-promotion, or the removal of the family to another town, or some misfortune such as sickness may delay the pupil so that he reaches the age of fourteen in one of the lower grades. Intelligent legislation is, accordingly, taking this into account. In some states it is required that the child shall finish a certain grade,—usually the sixth,—otherwise he must go to school until he is sixteen. Or, as in South Carolina, he must stay in school until he has acquired the ability to read and write.

In this connection a complication in legislation may be pointed out which is of profound social significance. The definition of adulthood which is given in labor legislation has usually set the age at which a boy may be regularly employed, at sixteen, while the education law of the same state often requires school attendance only up to fourteen. The result is that the youth between fourteen and sixteen has been sadly at sea. He has not had the judgment to stay in school after he was freed by the compulsory-education law, and he has not had the opportunity to enter on regular employment. He has therefore drifted about, working at odd jobs and learning the bad habits of the unproductively employed.

SUPERVISION A NECESSARY COROLLARY TO COMPULSION

Such considerations as these lead to a clear understanding of the reasons why the state is undertaking in increasing degree the supervision of the details of school work. It is not enough that communities should open schools or that pupils should be compelled to attend; the quality of education must be such as to justify the expenditure of public money and the investment of the pupils’ time and energy in the business of schooling.

Compulsory education implies obligations both on the side of the pupil and on the side of the community. It would manifestly be inequitable to compel children to go to school if the community failed to provide suitable, safe, and sanitary buildings. Because local wisdom in such matters is often limited, and local judgment biased by considerations of expense, the state has dealt with the matter both through general legislation and through vigorous inspection.

In like fashion it would evidently be indefensible to require pupils to go to school and use inferior textbooks or be instructed by unqualified teachers. Here again the larger community has found it necessary to take a hand. State adoption of textbooks is not uncommon, and state certification of teachers is becoming universal.

More important, perhaps, than anything else is the choice of the subject-matter of instruction. To the ordinary man, as indicated in an earlier chapter, subject-matter seems to choose itself; but it does not. Nor can the local community be expected to know the larger needs of its children. A very striking example of this is furnished by the fact that the federal government has recently set aside vast sums of money for the purpose of subsidizing and directing agricultural and industrial education. The theory back of this action is that even the states, and more certainly cities and towns, are unable to deal with the problems of adequate training for practical life. The largest unit, namely, the whole country, is so much concerned with the efficiency of its citizens in industrial matters that it has undertaken to subsidize and supervise this phase of education.

Such examples make clear the principle under which state laws define the minimum course of study and under which state departments of education are erected to supervise the administration of the course of study. They make clear also the justification for the statement that the control of education ought to be increasingly centralized.

HIGHER EDUCATION AND PUBLIC CONTROL

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. In the older parts of the country the state has been slow to provide higher schools. Colleges have often been provided for by denominational organizations or by purely private endowments. Even in the field of higher education, however, it is becoming evident that public interests are involved. In medicine, in law, and in training of teachers, the state has been obliged to assume increasingly supervisory powers, and of late the financial provision for such education has been more and more accepted as a public obligation. The result of this evolution is the broader provision out of the public purse for all kinds and all stages of education.

PUBLIC CONTROL ADEQUATE ONLY WHEN DIRECTED BY SCIENCE

Enough has been said to show that much is involved in the establishment of a public-school system. The problems which arise in the teaching of pupils are intricate; but when one thinks of education as a public necessity, to be purchased with public funds and to be administered in the interests of the broader community, one sees new justification for the demand that all school problems be managed with wisdom. This demand can be met only when school problems are made subjects of exhaustive scientific study.

FISCAL PROBLEM TYPICAL

The subsequent chapters will take up briefly the problems involved in organizing a school system. The first and most general problem is one of securing funds for the maintenance of the schools. It will be well to reiterate the statement with which the first chapter began. The pupil seldom thinks of costs. The teacher usually overlooks the fact that the community is interested in what schools cost. Yet funds are a prime necessity in organizing a public-school system. We turn, accordingly, to fiscal problems as among the first and most concrete examples of educational problems which must be studied by one who would be intelligent about the school system.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Whose duty is it to enforce school attendance in the community in which you live? When was the last school census taken? What is the ordinary ratio of school population to the total population? What percentage of children of high-school age are in high school? What percentage of eighth-grade pupils go on to high school? What percentage of high-school graduates go to college?

The ordinary reader will perhaps find it difficult to get answers to these questions. He should make himself a student of the reports of the Commissioner of Education of the United States and of the superintendent of schools in some city which publishes an annual report.

From some school record find out what percentage of enrolled pupils attend school regularly.

If there is a school nurse or a school physician, find out what time in the year is most likely to exhibit small attendance. Verify the finding from the school record.

What substitutes for attendance on public schools are permitted? How many children in the town attend schools other than public schools, and why?

AYRES, L. P. Child Accounting in the Public Schools. Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation. (Copies may be secured from the Russell Sage Foundation.) This is one of the volumes of the Cleveland survey and is the only brief statement of the whole matter that there is.

Reports of the Commissioner of Education should be studied as suggested above.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Ellwood P. Cubberley, “Changing Conceptions of Education,” Riverside Educational Monograph, pp. 27-35. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909.

[10] Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1888-1889, p. 471.

[11] Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1915, Vol. I, p. 12.

[12] Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1916, Vol. I, p. 24.

[13] Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1916, Vol. I, p. 25.

[14] Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1915, Vol. I, pp. 12-13.