Class Instruction given over to the Teacher
Although the community as a whole recognizes the need of education, and is willing to supply the necessary financial support, it cannot manage directly the details of school operation. The community cannot decide what seven-year-old children shall study. The community cannot decide what ought to be done with a disorderly pupil. It becomes necessary, therefore, for the community to devise some method of picking out suitable representatives who can carry on the schools.
The first task to be thus delegated was that of classroom instruction. One reads in the records of the early town meetings of New England how the whole community participated in the discussion of all financial matters and of many problems connected with the course of study. For example, the site of a schoolhouse, its cost, and its plan have always been subjects of community discussion. Again, the community has often decided whether it wants geography taught or certain branches of mathematics. But when it came to the daily routine of school work, the community employed a teacher and turned the children over to him.