Importance of the Public Elementary School.—Of the various schools, it is only the public elementary school with which we need concern ourselves in this book. The State compels no one to attend the higher school or the university. The children of the lower classes of the population, whose relatives are not in a position to provide instruction for them in their own homes, are all sent to the public elementary school. Now, since in a manufacturing town nearly three-fourths of all the children belong to the lower classes, since for this reason, of the children attending the public elementary schools, the enormous majority belong to the proletariat, since, finally, only a minimal proportion of proletarian children attend any other kind of school, it follows that the public elementary school is primarily intended for the children of the proletariat, and that practically the only school available for these children is the public elementary school. To-day, the children of the lower classes are educated almost exclusively in the public elementary school, those of the middle classes chiefly in the public elementary school, while those of the upper classes are educated almost without exception in their own homes by tutors and governesses. [Obviously the writer refers here to the conditions obtaining in his own country.]
Methods of Instruction.—Children at the present day can be educated by any of the following methods: (a) The parents themselves instruct their children; (b) they have their children taught by a tutor or a governess in their own homes; (c) they combine to carry on special schools for their own children (family schools); (d) they send their children either to a governmental or to a private school. In former days there existed no public schools. Parents either educated their own children, or had them educated by a tutor or governess. As time goes on the number of parents increases who are competent to teach their children all that they learn at the public elementary school; but most parents have neither leisure nor desire to undertake this. Consider, for example, the case of the father of a family whose whole day is spent at work. Most fathers of families make a better use of their time by devoting all their energies to their trade or profession, instead of themselves attempting the education of their children. Thus here also the principle of the division of labour comes more and more fully into application. The parent gives his whole time to his work for a livelihood, and the profession of teacher becomes more and more exclusively that of a specialist. The children of the proletariat are in need of education, and in their case, apart from the question of leisure or desire, the parents lack the necessary aptitude to instruct their own children. The public elementary schools of to-day have come into existence for the children of these lower strata of the population, and the curriculum of such schools has been determined mainly by the decision of the upper classes as to what it is expedient that the lower classes should be taught.
Education at home by a tutor or governess is in certain respects superior, and in other respects inferior, to that obtainable at the public elementary school. The advantages of home instruction are, first, that it has a more individual character, since the tutor or governess is more intimately acquainted with the child, and each individual child receives a comparatively larger share of the teacher’s attention; secondly, in the case of a large family, we have the best possible type of co-education; thirdly, the unhygienic influences of the public elementary school can be avoided. The disadvantages are: a really good tutor or governess is by no means easy to find, and in the absence of such a one, the education is most inefficient; the domestic instructor is but a single person, whereas in the public elementary school there are a number of teachers, and the defects of one will be compensated by the good qualities of another; we may even say that the defects of the teachers are more than compensated by the other influences of the public elementary school. Education by a domestic instructor can never make good for the child the lack of the multiform life of the school, which affords so admirable a preparation for later life. In the school there are many children who compete with one another, but also form friendships with one another. However questionable it may be, on grounds of principle, whether for the purposes of instruction and education it is proper to appeal to the ambition, competitive zeal, and envy of children, yet we have to admit that so long as the present order of society continues, based upon individualism and free competition, it is absolutely essential that children should be prepared for individualism and free competition. If the domestic instructor gets on friendly terms with the child, his authority is apt thereby to be undermined; but if he remains on purely formal terms, he risks the repression of the child’s individuality. Friction between parents and domestic instructors is almost inevitable. Education in the public elementary school costs far less per child than domestic instruction, and this saving is advantageous, not to the individual only, but from the standpoint of public economy. It is altogether opposed to the interest of public economy that each child should have a separate teacher; that certain work, which can be properly performed by a certain number of teachers, should be done in such a way as to need ten times that number of teachers. To do this is to waste time and energy which in the interest of public economy might be much better employed. When some children are educated at home and others in the public elementary school, the two classes of children have entirely a different education, and this can only tend to accentuate class contrasts, which are already excessive.
The General Obligation of School Attendance.—The economic order of to-day, based as it is upon free competition, should impose like conditions upon all the competitors in the economic struggle. We cannot speak of free competition unless all the competitors start from scratch; in a system of free competition all should start with the same educational opportunities. As time goes on the desire becomes ever more general that every member of the community should secure a certain minimum of education; and it is felt that the State is not merely justified but obliged to secure this minimum for all. Thus it becomes continually more important that every adult should have this elementary minimum of education. The existing economic order is based upon a general knowledge of writing and reading. One unable to read or write is hardly in a position to safeguard his most elementary interests. He should also know the first principles of arithmetic, inasmuch as to-day the value of all commodities is expressed in multiples of the monetary unit. The State is well aware that compulsory education involves a limitation of personal freedom and an interference with family life; but none the less the modern State finds it necessary to insist that every child shall receive a minimum of education.
The State imposes the duty upon those responsible for the care of the child, of sending this child to the public elementary school from the age of six to the age of fifteen, or, in default of this, of giving the child an equivalent education at home. On the one hand, the State itself institutes public elementary schools; and, on the other hand, the State gives to the various religious organisations, to the local authorities, and to private individuals, the right to found and carry on elementary schools, with the proviso that in these schools children shall receive the same education (neither more nor less) as in the State schools. Thus, the State has no concern as to what education the child’s relatives may think desirable, but exercises compulsion to secure the adoption of its own educational standard, either by inflicting penalties if the child does not attend school, or even by removal of the child for compulsory education away from home.
But the so-called general obligation of school attendance is not really general, and applies exclusively, or almost exclusively, to the lower classes of the population. The other classes can evade the obligation of school attendance by having their children educated at home. The proletarian parents are well aware that the elementary school teaches neither in matter nor in manner in accordance with proletarian conceptions; but at present they have to submit. The duty of universal school attendance is not very strictly enforced. Even in the most highly civilised countries, a certain proportion of children of school age receive no elementary education. In many countries the universal obligation of school attendance exists only on paper. The conditions in this respect are especially bad, on the one hand, in the country districts (where, therefore, the proportion of illiterates is much greater than in the towns), and, secondly, in districts where there is a great demand for labour. The principle of universal compulsory school attendance is not accepted without opposition. It is resisted by many proletarian parents who wish their children to engage in wage-labour at an early age, and it is resisted also by many capitalists who think they could make larger profits with cheaper labour.
The Purpose of the Elementary School.—To enable us to answer the question, what is the purpose of the public elementary school, it is necessary that we should first be able to decide what is the purpose of education. This question is not educational merely, but also social and political. The purpose of the public elementary school is dependent at any particular period upon the general characteristics of that period; for, first, one learns, not at school, but in life; secondly, the dominant authority in the State in any epoch wishes to instil in the minds of the young whatever “virtues” are considered essential to the maintenance of the power of the dominant caste. All political parties consider the public elementary school to be extremely important, and each one of them wishes to use this institution for its own purposes. They all recognise that the future belongs to the young, that the public elementary school plays the leading part in the education of the young; and each party sees that its special aims can be attained only by the education of individuals to consider that these aims are sacred and desirable. The adherents of a particular political tendency therefore oppose the inculcation in the public elementary schools of any tendency adverse to their own, but they regard it as self-evident that their own views ought to be inculcated in the elementary school.
Instruction versus Education.—Many persons contend that the aim of the school is not so much education as instruction. They consider that the main factor in education is not the school, but the family. But this is certain, that even in the school which thinks only of instructing its pupils, education in the wider sense is effected. In school life, in school friendships, in the sense of solidarity, in the friendly competition between schoolfellows, in the necessity to learn, are embodied powerful educative influences. It is, in fact, essential that the school should educate as well as instruct. The public elementary school of to-day makes therefore a very great mistake if it insists on intellectual rather than on moral education, and upon instruction rather than upon education.
Moral Instruction.—According to the views of educationalists, it is the aim of the public elementary school to educate children to be, (a) religious, (b) patriotic, (c) obedient, (d) humble, (e) subordinate citizens. The elementary school of to-day does in fact mainly subserve these ends.
(a) Religious instruction and the inculcation of the fear of God are no proper part of the work of the public elementary school. Among all the factors of education, it is certainly not the public elementary school which should undertake this branch of instruction.