All these arguments combine to reinforce the need for the institution of continuation schools. It is not the aim of these schools to prepare their pupils for work in special branches of industry, but their spirit is a much more practical one than that of the elementary schools. Almost without exception, they are purely secular, and give no religious instruction. They must lay great emphasis upon the need that the children should be habituated to care regularly for their bodies and their health. In addition to the general continuation schools, there exist industrial continuation schools or schools of apprenticeship. The former are mostly in the hands of the education authorities, whilst the latter are controlled by the boards supervising commerce and industry (Gewerbebehörden). In agricultural districts, schools of this latter order take the form of schools of agriculture.
The advocates of the emancipation of women demand the institution of continuation schools for girls in especial. Such schools must naturally give the first place to the teaching of domestic economy; but many consider that they should also give instruction in the main principles of education, and especially regarding the care of infants. (Special schools of domestic economy and of cooking already, of course, exist.) Many demand that these subjects should receive special attention in the public elementary schools; but it should suffice here if in the teaching of other subjects the bearing of these upon domestic economy and the conduct of life is explained, in so far as this comports with the main object of the course of instruction. Objections have been raised by many to the effect that the girls are too young to be taught domestic economy to any good purpose. But experience teaches the contrary. The results of teaching domestic economy have been so satisfactory that it is proposed to make it an essential part of the curriculum.
Continuation schools are not regarded with universal favour. In fact, their existence offers a certain hindrance to the exploitation of the working powers of the young, and this is disagreeable, not only to factory owners and manual workers, but for the time being is distasteful to many proletarian parents. These schools turn out workers who can compete successfully with the older generation of unskilled labourers. In spite of these objections, continuation schools become ever more important and more widely diffused, tending more and more to become an invariable supplement to the public elementary school. Of late years, in many countries, attendance at continuation schools has been made compulsory, especially attendance at schools of apprenticeship in the case of children who fail to attend the middle schools. To make attendance at a continuation school obligatory is an unmistakable tendency of evolution.
The Tendency of Evolution.—The public elementary school becomes continually more uniform in character; it tends, that is to say, to become the common school for all children of a certain age, irrespective of the wealth or position of their parents, and to lay the foundation upon which will build all middle and higher educational institutions. Schools of this character are already to be found in Denmark and in the United States of America. The public elementary school need not necessarily give religious instruction. Since the schools administered by the religious organisations are of comparatively little value, it is necessary that the public elementary school should be open to all children, irrespective of their creed. A further step in development is for the public elementary school to abandon its inappropriate efforts to give religious instruction.
Private schools are only for the children of the well-to-do. In the majority of Gemeindeschulen a conservative and narrowly orthodox religious spirit prevails. A proportion of the local authorities are unwilling or unable to make the material sacrifices requisite for the proper carrying on of the elementary schools, and for this reason these schools vary greatly in efficiency. To prove this, it suffices, in various countries, to compare the State schools with the Gemeindeschulen, and the town schools with the village schools.
It is absolutely essential that it should be established on principle that every child, not excepting the children of the well-to-do, must attend a public elementary school, and that neither attendance at a private school nor private domestic instruction can be accepted in lieu of such attendance—if only for the reason that not until this obligation is universally enforced will the richer classes acquire a genuine interest in the public elementary schools. To this it is objected that the elementary schools are already overcrowded, that their hygienic conditions are unsatisfactory, and that the society of the poorer children would not be good for the richer ones. But if all this is true, the only reasonable conclusion we can draw is, that it is time that these defects in the public elementary school were abolished. If, for the reasons given, the elementary school is unsuitable for the children of the well-to-do, it is no less unsuitable for the children of the poor. For the rest, each child is influenced by all the others. The rich child may learn much that is beautiful and good from the poor one, the latter often learns much that is evil and hateful from the former. The children of the well-to-do must learn in their earliest youth to know the people, for it is their mission to lead and they must accustom themselves to intercourse with the people.
The national system for elementary education must be extended so as to become as comprehensive and as actual as possible. The tendency of evolution is towards the institution of a public elementary school truly general, truly national, secular, and uniform in character. Such a school is the school of the future.