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?