V What Schools Must Provide to Meet Child Needs
If, up to this point, we have rightly described child needs, the school must be so organized as to provide for growth and play, for instructing the child in a knowledge of people, institutions, things and ideas, and for preparing every child to do his work in life.
These subjects must be so apportioned over the grades that each child has the benefit of them. The high school is a continuation of the elementary school. It is in the high school that children should begin to specialize, because specialization before the beginning of adolescence is undesirable; but since, in many localities, almost all of the children leave before reaching the high school, these subjects must be taught in the elementary grades. Certain things every child must know. If he is going to drop school at fourteen, as three-quarters of the American school children do, he must be reached in the first eight school grades. If he goes to high school he may there be given an opportunity to complete and intensify the education which the elementary school has started.
We believe that these fundamental principles of education are sufficiently flexible to fit any community in the United States; they will apply to places of the most divergent school needs.
VI The Educational Work of the Small Town
Let us begin by applying the scheme to a mining village of three thousand inhabitants, a typical industrial community.
In this village more than nine-tenths of the children leave school at or before fourteen years of age, so that whatever school training they get must be secured between the ages of six and fourteen.
The kind of activities that the children will take up in life is fixed by the custom of the town. The great majority of the boys go into the mines or shops, while practically all of the girls help around the home until they marry. A small number work in stores and factories.
The life is rather primitive; the houses are set far apart; the children have an abundance of play space; they are required to do chores in homes where they receive little home training. The town affords an unparalleled opportunity to learn nasty things in a nasty way.
Almost all of the educational work in such a town must be done in the elementary schools. While high school facilities may be afforded they will appeal to a vanishingly small percentage of the children.