SPECIMENS IN DRAWING AND DESIGN
The history of a nation is determined by the home life of its people. Just as the prosperity of the individual home depends upon the efficiency and care of the partners in its making, so does the welfare of a nation hang on the ability and earnestness of the individual citizens. The rise of our own nation is due to the determination of our forefathers to found a government which, from the national down through the state, county and city forms, should be based upon the simple principles of upright family life. Our ideas of social life and social equality could not have been conceived under the influence of European institutions. Here, where those in the humblest walks of life may be the nobility, and where honor is conferred for merit alone, we have developed social customs to correspond with our American spirit, and, proceeding on independent and original lines, we have made our industrial and commercial system to control the busiest marts, to break the records of history, to fairly alarm the world.
The chief element of the American spirit is the appreciation of high ideals, not only in the national life, but in the education, the culture and the industrial life of the individual. When we see new openings on already established lines, it is characteristic of us as a people to pursue these openings, even though they lead in directions directly opposed to those which we have hitherto followed. Thoroughness and earnestness are the keynotes of American progress, and these are the characteristics which to-day give us our commanding position among the nations.
Is it not fitting and necessary that a nation of such religious, social, political and commercial originality and progress should develop co-ordinate with these a system of education? The free public school system is among the purest and most effectual of our democratic institutions. It has fostered the American spirit, it has laid the foundation for an American culture; it has, in large part, made possible the present success in American industrial life.
Although it is many years since the doctrine of learning through doing was first promulgated, it has remained for the present generation to make the general application. Educators have been slowly, but surely, arriving at the conclusion that the university ideals of Europe, which naturally dominated our higher educational institution during the first century of our history, and which still hold sway in certain of our colleges, are not sufficient for our needs. Present-day conditions demand an education which will afford culture and practical preparation for the common duties at the same time. There is a loud and emphatic call for our schools to cultivate the executive quality in our young men and women and to prepare them for immediate, well-directed action in the affairs of life. Many of our states have answered nobly the call for schools where boys can be trained along practical lines which make for success and usefulness. Nearly every state has its Agricultural and Mechanical College. This is all very well for the boys, but how about the girls?
In past years institutions which were organized primarily to meet the needs of men for their professional or business training have, largely from a spirit of chivalry and esteem, been opened to women. Also, largely from a spirit of social concern, some of the best friends of womankind have, in a degree, popularized the typical woman’s college. In both cases much good has been accomplished, but in neither case have the needs of the education of women been fully met. Men’s colleges that have been opened to women have given them the same training as is provided for men, and the majority of the women’s colleges have patterned their curricula after the same assumption. This theory leads women to contemplate man’s occupations and professions as their only field of action, and, while it may be the best in many individual cases, it does not provide for the mass of women the kind of higher education mostly needed. From a social standpoint, I believe in the co-education of the sexes, for education is but a preparation for life, and it seems the plain plan of creation for men and women to mingle, but from a practical standpoint co-education is not always advantageous, resulting too frequently, as stated, in making woman the competitor of man, instead of fitting her to work on her own peculiar lines.
BASKETRY WORK BY STUDENTS
The young woman whose education has been based upon efficient scholarship, together with domestic and industrial training of a practical type, brings into the marriage relation a comradeship which grows out of her ability to sustain her part of the partnership. It is a womanly instinct to want to enter her legitimate realm—the home. Equipped with the training which gives her a righteous sovereignty, the integrity of that home is assured. Is it not worth our while to promote as many such homes as possible?