Round out the boy’s nature
Fortunately, the new provisions of the schools are furnishing more and more definitely the equipment and the course of training most necessary for the masses of the growing children. Fortunately, too, the illiterate father is not to be permitted to dictate as to what subjects his boy is to study in the school, there being not only compulsory attendance, but strict requirements that every child pursue the prescribed course. The time is fast approaching when the rural parent in any community can feel assured that this course of study has been mapped out by expert authority in just such a way as to serve the highest needs of his boy, the idea being to teach and awaken every side of the young nature into its highest possible activity.
In the usual case it is a waste of time to attempt to predetermine the boy’s vocational life before he has gone at least well up through the intermediate grades of the common school; and even then, there is usually not much indication of what he is best suited for. So, one of the great purposes of the common school course is that of sounding the boy on every side and in every depth of his nature, so to speak, in order to find what is there, and to determine what he is by inheritance best suited to do as a life work.
Plate XXVIII.
Fig. 35.—An illustration of how to keep the boy on the farm. Every boy needs to acquire early an intimate knowledge of some great industrial pursuit.
The usual inclination of the rural parent is that of looking at his son’s education too strictly in terms of dollars and cents and to be impatient at the thought of the boy’s taking a broad, fundamental course of schooling. Such school subjects as language and composition are especially thought of as a useless waste of time. But fortunately, as indicated above, the choice is no longer left either to the boy or his father. The former must pursue the subjects assigned him and allow time to prove the wisdom of such a procedure, as it most certainly will. Wherefore, let the rural father attempt to think of his boy, not merely as a coming money-maker, but as a coming man; a man of power and worth and influence in the community in which he is to live, a man of whom his aged father in future time will be most proud, and by whom he will be highly honored.