Ruskin.
The recent exchange of visits between Pennsylvanians and Wisconsinites has resulted in the organization of an association for the carrying out of the Wisconsin Idea in Pennsylvania; but the New York Evening Post, in commenting upon the Pennsylvania version of the Wisconsin Idea, calls attention to the fact that in Wisconsin the idea is carried into effect by public agencies, whereas the Pennsylvania version is to be executed privately! The Evening Post did not, indeed, say execute; I, myself, have introduced the word, because it so exactly conveys the meaning of the Post's criticism.
Why is it that so many good people take up things like the Boy Scout movement, privately, never giving a moment's thought to our rusting school machinery? Why are we so privately minded as to enthuse over Mrs. so-and-so's out-of-the-city movement for children, never thinking of the potentialities of establishments like Girard College? The trouble is that we Americans have never learned to do things together; we still have the loyal but lazy habit of looking expectantly for a King, and, of course, we get a Philadelphia Ring, the lowest Circle in the Inferno of the Worst; and all the while our might be doers of good affect a kind of private Kingship, and sink into a mire of idiotic [11] impotence.
The seven wonders of the world all fade into insignificance in comparison with one great fact in modern government, a fact so fundamental that we seldom think of it, namely, the great fact of taxation. Funds sufficient to meet every public need of the community flow automatically into the public treasury. This is indeed a very remarkable thing, but it seems almost ludicrous when we consider that wasteful expenditure of public funds is the universal rule, and that good people everywhere are struggling to do public things privately! Was there ever before two such horns to a dilemma? Fog horns, grown inwardly on every Pennsylvanian's head! When a city of 10,000 people has an annual school budget of $60,000, it is evident that everything can be done that needs to be done for the schooling of children.
I believe that the school day should be increased to 8 hours, the school week to 6 days, and the school year to 12 months; with elastic provision for home work and out-of-town visiting. I believe that school activities should include a wide variety of simple hand work, and a great deal of outdoor play, with ample provision for the things that are done by Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls; and when children are old enough and strong enough to begin their vocational training, their school activities should be combined with work in office and factory. Let no one imagine that such a program is impracticable; for in the city, school is the sum of all influences outside the home, and the school day is now more than eight hours, the school week is more than six days, and school lasts the whole year through; these are the facts, say what you will; and everything is in a dreadful state of confusion—excepting only book work. It is time for us to think of the public school as including everything which makes for the efficient organization and orderly control of the juvenile world. The Junior Municipality, which has been recently proposed, added to existing school work with provision for simple manual training and outdoor play would constitute a fairly complete realization of this wide conception of the public school, and any narrower conception is hopeless in a modern city.
As to educational values there is a widespread misunderstanding. Imagine a teacher taking his youngsters on a hike two or three times a week all winter long! Every parent, hoping for his children to escape the necessity of work, would howl in stupid criticism "Is that what I send my children to school for?" Or the School Superintendent might have the point of view of the excessively teachy teacher, who, in a recent discussion of the Boy Scout idea, admitted that cross-country hikes would be a good thing, provided, something were associated with them to justify them, and this something was understood to be bookish! As to vocational training, on the other hand, we must reckon with the manufacturer who will not train workmen for his competitors but who expects his competitors to train workmen for him. And we must also reckon with the ministerial member of the school-board who meets a proposal for vocational training with the question "How then will you educate for life?"
"Ich ging im Walde
So fuer mich hin,