On the Firing Line in Education

by Adoniram Judson Ladd

The School

The American school is a wonderful institution. In its absolute universality and impartiality, in its fine spirit of democracy both of teachers and pupils, there is nothing like it elsewhere in the world. It is a product of the genius of our people. Product? Yes, but, also, successively, the most influential cause of the genius of our people. From the first, in a somewhat remarkable degree, we have been a people knowing no social classes or distinctions. The caste idea, so prevalent in European countries, has ever been repugnant to us. And our schools, emanating from such a people, have had a powerful reflex influence in shaping the people and keeping those fine ideals ever before us. But let us go back and see whence it came—trace the connection between the complex, highly influential institution of to-day and the simple offshoot of the home of primitive times. Just when it was first instituted, nobody knows; but in essential features it is very ancient. Long before the beginning of the Christian era, as a supplementary agent of the home having in charge that one portion of its work, it was a well-recognized and highly esteemed institution.

I have already called attention to the great changes that have taken place in the home and in the church as the centuries have passed. The school likewise has changed, and is to-day as far removed from its original prototype as either of the others. It has changed because the home has changed, and in its changes has kept pace with the changing ideals and added complexities of home life. At the very first, only the essentials—teacher and boy—were present: no building, the great out-of-doors furnished the room and the friendly tree the only protection from sun and storm; no course of study, no book—the teacher was all in all. But this stage passed and the next, that continued so long and is more characteristic, followed. Here we find the building and the book as well as the teacher and the boy. The boy's one task is to transfer the contents of the book to his own mental storehouse and the teacher's function to see that the transfer is made. Knowledge was the main element of the child's preparation, that the home demanded of its school. And this often but ill-fitted him for the performance of the duties of life. This period continued for many centuries, down almost to the present time. But another and a greater followed—a period in which not merely knowledge was demanded as an outcome of the school's activities, but something else very different, including that, it is true, but finer and greater than that—something toward which they are the contributing agents—a somewhat harmonious development of the entire life—physical, mental, and moral.

Little by little, as time has passed, the home seems to have been throwing added burdens upon the school until now it sometimes looks as if the school is expected to give the entire preparation of the child—moral, physical, and manual, as well as mental. It sometimes seems as if the home had gone off on a vacation and left the school to do its work. Now, that statement implies a criticism of the home. On the other hand, it is frequently said by unfriendly critics of our public schools that the schools are all the time reaching out and, in a grasping way, more and more taking unto themselves the sacred rights and privileges of the home, even setting themselves up in authority over the home, aye, even alienating the affections of the children, making the home of none effect. Where does the truth lie? Has the home been so negligent of its duty, or has the school forgotten that it is the creature of the home? Which is the usurper? That is an interesting question. We can not go into it in detail, but let me suggest that it has all come about not so much from the unwarranted assumption of the school, nor the conscious and wilful neglect of the home as from the unconscious working out of a great principle fundamental in human development—namely, that the three phases of a child's life—the physical, the moral, and the intellectual,—can not be separately developed.

At first the home had the three lines of work. Soon it delegated two of them to other agencies and then, thru inexperience or thoughtlessness, made the fatal mistake of withdrawing supervision, assuming that no oversight was necessary. Unwise and short-sighted! No individual would thus deal with any other interest. The farm, the store, the financial interest of any kind, even the thing that ministers to the pleasure of life, often receives more personal attention from the parent than does the school. And this situation is not peculiar to our own day. When I was a boy, in another and distant state, we used to sing a song called "The Parent and the School." The various verses showed that parents were in the habit of visiting every other known place—the theater, the concert, the fair, the sea, the neighbors, and each verse closed with the refrain, "And why don't they visit the school?" They should, but they did not then, nor do they to-day. Somehow, all along the line, the home has seemed to think that if it should satisfy the physical needs of the child in providing food and clothing and shelter, the school should develop the intellectual and the church the moral natures in different places and at different times, and under different conditions, and that in some mysterious manner the three could become satisfactorily blended into a harmonious life. Impossible! The three natures are so clearly interrelated, each depends so much upon the others, that the separate and independent development of any one is impossible.

The spiritual depends upon the intellectual as the house rests upon the foundation. Its mental pictures, its concepts, its beliefs, come out of it, and are marred, misshapen, untrue, just to the extent to which that is faulty. Intelligence is necessary to religious belief and religious life. And the intellectual, in its foundation laying, can not stop short at that point any more than a plant can stop growing when its roots are well developed. The process once well begun is pushed on by the force from behind and must enter the higher realm. So I am not surprised that the school at times seems to be in charge of the entire work. And physical conditions have so much to do with success in both fields that they must be considered by both. The three processes are not only interrelated, they are interlaced, intertwined, as the strands of a braided cord. And just as the cord would be incomplete, just as it would lack strength, if any of the strands were to be omitted, or if the braiding were to be haphazard, so the life would be incomplete, one-sided, weak, should these three processes not go on side by side under the fostering care of an intelligent unifying agency. Indeed, if there is any one thing that has been demonstrated beyond the peradventure of a doubt by modern research in the physical and psychical realms, it is the significant fact that life is a unity. The physical, the intellectual, and the moral are like the three leaves of the clover. And just as with the clover we must apply the nourishment to the root and not to the separated branches, so with the child we must so select and use our educative material that the three-fold development shall result from the single application.

A simple illustration or two will help to make the point clear. All children study arithmetic in school. It is an intellectual activity and so clearly belongs to the school. Why do all study it? Because for the practical duties of life they need to know how to handle numbers. It is a practical study. Yes, but there is something else that the subject is supposed to yield or the extended time given to it could not be justified. It yields large fruitage in the development of the power of concentration and intellectual keenness. Yes, but better than that. All mathematical subjects, in that they require absolute accuracy and definiteness in their operations, are particularly helpful in developing those fine moral qualities of honesty, integrity, and upright dealing. Again, history is taught in the schools as an intellectual subject. In intellectual development alone it is worth all it costs. But over and above the value as a mental quickener it is to be placed as a builder of character, and ministering to the development of the moral and even the spiritual life. Nowhere else can the young so well learn that "righteousness exalteth a nation" and that "sin is a reproach to any people." In no other way so well as by the study of history can desired examples of noble character be placed before the young for imitation. Take but one other illustration, that of gymnastics and athletics—the entire program of play. For physical development? Yes, but in addition to that and finer than that, intellectual development of a high order thru the keener activity of the senses, the quicker and more accurate vision, the developed judgment, and finer discriminations. Yes, but better even than mere intellectual keenness there result from such activities the rare moral qualities of tolerance, respect for others, and self-control. And so I might go on and give illustration after illustration. It is not necessary. You catch my point. I am merely trying to demonstrate two facts: first, that the great breadth of the work of the school—embracing as it does, the development of the entire nature of the child, mental, moral, and physical, instead of merely the mental, that which was given her at first, is hers now not because of the home's neglect nor because the school has been unduly ambitious and grasping, but because we have come to see that life is a unity and can not be cut up into parts each separately developed. And secondly, I have tried to show that the school does interest itself in the moral life of the pupil. As a matter of fact, the school does more to develop morality and to lead toward a sane religious life than all other agencies combined. Our modern American school is a wonderful institution.

But in spite of the fact that the school is broad in its ministrations, it can not stand alone. All three institutions are needed. But the three must work together and in harmony and intelligently, each assisting the others. And one of the three must act as the centralizing, the unifying, the combining agency and bring order out of that which would otherwise be chaos by recognizing the value of each contribution of each of the others, assigning it to its proper place and thus aptly blending the work of the three. Now, which shall be the centralizing force? Really, is there any question? Must it not be the original institution—the home—the one which saw the need of the others and called them into being—the one upon which the responsibility finally rests? And even tho many individual homes are weak, wholly incapable of doing themselves all the varied kinds of work needed, yet the collective institution can and must act. And even the individual home, efficient or inefficient, should, much more than it does, thus act within the limits of its own jurisdiction and up to the limits of its own power.

And to whom does the school belong, anyway? To the Board of Education? Is it the private possession of the teachers? Does it exist to give teachers positions? Why, no, of course not. It is yours, and yours, and yours. They, both Board and teachers, are your servants, hired men and women, if you and they please—hired for pay to do your work, just as much as are the clerks in your stores, the harvest hands on the farms, or the maids in the kitchen. A different kind of work to be sure but, nevertheless, we are workmen for pay. And we need watching just as much as do the other workers. But let us put it in this way—we need intelligent, sympathetic co-operation, as an opportunity and as a spur for our best work and as a joy in it all—your constant kindly interest and your intelligent co-operation. I suppose that the situation is quite different in a city of this size from what it is in the large centers. I remember of talking, at one time, to an audience of teachers in a large city. I was astounded to learn that those teachers did not know, by sight even, the parents of one-half of their pupils, and many of them had been in the schools for a period of from three to four years. Whose fault was it? The teacher's or the parents? Why, what is the school? And whose is it? And what is it for? Whose fault was it? The question does not need an answer. It answers itself. But I urged those teachers to visit the homes—to become acquainted with the parents of their pupils so that they could know the atmosphere surrounding them and thus be better able to guide their development and minister to their varied needs. But I did not thus urge them because they had, up to that time, neglected their duty, rather because there seemed no prospect that the homes would embrace their opportunity and take the initiative.

I fancy that here in the smaller place where everybody knows everybody it is very different. Doubtless there is not a teacher here whose acquaintance has not been made by both parents of every child in her or his room. Probably there is not one who has not been entertained in every home represented in the room. This should be the situation not primarily because parents owe teachers such attention, not because any such social responsibility rests upon them, but rather because the relationship thus created gives parents the best possible opportunity to co-operate with the school in doing that portion of the home's great work. No, parents do not "owe" it to the teachers, rather do they "owe" it to their children and the next generation. I am urging this program because it is the only way by which you can get the most and best service from the schools.