Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Short Talk Bulletin Vol 01 No 04
SHORT TALK BULLETIN- Vol.I April. 1923 No.4
"PUBLIC SCHOOLS"
by: Unknown
FELLOW STOCKHOLDERS:
We are going to discuss, for a few moments, the greatest business
enterprise in which you and I are jointly engaged. It is practically a new
business, having been in existence, in a nation-wide way, only about
seventy-five years. The world knew nothing about this business a hundred
years ago, and some of our colonial fathers scoffed at it as something
which, if it could be attained, was not worth the having. As a business,
let us analyze it for ourselves, carefully.
A careful analysis is justified. For this business is one which has
greater capital invested than any other enterprise in America. Tremendous
amounts of real estate are owned. Great buildings house the shops. There
are officers in every city and town in the country. An army of directors
and workers is employed. Upon this business is spent the majority of our
peace-time taxes. Into its factories goes the most precious material that
our nation yields. Out of it comes a product, the value of which far
exceeds our production of foodstuffs and manufactures combined.
This business, Fellow Stockholders, is the American Public School System.
The product of this "factory" is the education of our children - your boys
and girls, and mine. Upon this product depends the future of America. We,
as a people, invest more money in it than in anything else in which we are
interested. The system is a corporation - and you and I own and operate
it. When we consider that the high school enrollment jumped from 915,000
to 1,645,000 in eight years, and that only a little more than seventy-five
years ago there were no high schools in this entire world, we begin to
understand how gigantic an enterprise it is, and how rapidly it is growing.
It is from these points of view that we want to discuss the public school
system. Your child goes through the public school - how does he come out?
You pay more actual dollars and cents for the maintenance and upbuilding of
the public school than you do for any other peace work that you are
interested in as a taxpayer - what dividends do you get back? Your child
is graduated from your high school - and what sort of a job does he get?
More important still, what kind of a job does he hunt for?
We have the right of any stockholder to see what we are getting for our
money. We are going to give credit for every bit of constructive work that
enters into the product. We are going to charge every item which properly
belongs on the debit side of the ledger. We are not going to admit that
our efforts have been vain, these seventy-five years. We are not going to
indict the management, except as we shall find ourselves wanting.
Let us begin our survey.
The community in which we live has invested thousands, hundreds of
thousands, perhaps millions of dollars, in our "plant." Yet that plant is
idle more than three-fourths of the time. We admit that it should be idle
a part of the time - perhaps a little more than half. But when the plant
operates on a thirty hour a week schedule for only thirty-six weeks, is it
just to say - as stockholders - that the idle time is out of proportion to
the working hours?
We are not saying that the children and their teachers should put in eight
hours a day, twelve months in the year. We are talking about our "plant" -
the buildings. Are we using them efficiently? Someone may say that they
are specially constructed, that they are not adaptable to the production of
other things. Are we so sure? Could they not be so adapted?
Then let us consider the managers, superintendents, and foreman. They are
the faculty. Assuming that they are proficient, how about the way we
handle them? Would you permit half or more of your foreman and responsible
officers to shift from one plant to the another every year? Would you
expect them to be satisfied and happy in an environment where they were
unable to become acquainted with their neighbors until the year was up, or
practically so? Would you care to have a business in which all your
skilled operatives were changing every three years? Yet this is what
happens to your teachers. A large percentage of them shift from place to
place at the end of the school year; they know little of the community in
which they teach until the school year is ended. Does this kind of
organization develop proficiency?
The recent War brought out the woeful lack of even the most elementary
education in many young men of draft age, The percentage of illiteracy was
found to be disgracefully high. Our government had to spend billions in
training young men to understand and obey orders. We paid an immense price
to give elementary education to these adults. Is it sound business sense
to allow the next generation to come out of the schools as ignorant as
these adult?
As good as our public school system is, we find that there is a tremendous
economic waste in its administration. Viewed from a business standpoint,
can we afford to let this go on? The Public School system ought in any
balanced scheme of things to link up very definitely, not only with
"Higher Education," but with the home, business, and community life.
Failing in this, there is an economic waste. The percentage of business
and professional failures is an index of our school system. The percentage
of failures is too high.
No self-respecting citizen, no stockholder in this great corporation of
ours, needs to be told that the ideals of educated men and women must more
and more be made the ideals of all our people. This is what we ought to
mean when we speak of "Americanism." No thinking man or woman owning a
share in this "Company" can fail to realize that the cost of education is a
productive expenditure of money, that it will pay enormous dividends, and
that in no sense of the word is it a charity!
It needs no argument to prove that the Public School is "Not" a place where
political, religious, or educational "Axes" are to be ground! There should
be no argument to prove that every one of us must understand and appreciate
the value of the public service rendered by teachers. They should know us,
and mix with us, and acquire a practical knowledge of the problems of life
which we face, and which our children must face. And it is infinitely more
important that we know the teachers into whose care we entrust our
children. It is worthwhile, from a dollar and cents standpoint, for us to
cultivate them, entertain them in our homes and make them feel that they
are being relied upon, and that they can rely upon us!
We have spoken of "Americanism." What does it mean? What should it mean
to our children? From this standpoint what are the real needs of the
Public School?
"Americanism" means Equality of Opportunity," We live in no feudal age.
There are no Barons or Lords of the Manor who hold us as chattels. Each
man and woman is a human soul, entitled to a fair chance. Inevitably we
are bound to each other by the ties of brotherhood, and the future of our
America depends upon the growing of every boy and girl into a healthy,
happy, competent manhood and womanhood, able to cope with the conditions
that a citizen must face. Our Public School system should fit children to
take advantage of their opportunities, and so make of themselves all that
ambition and thrift and character may hope to attain.
Universal education, more than anything else, must be the goal of our
republic. Upon this rest the foundations of government, for only through
intelligent citizens can our government continue in the years to come.
The ban of factory production is returned goods - goods which have been
improperly manufactured and are sent back to be worked over. Do we realize
that there can be returned goods in our schools? Have we ever stopped to
think that it costs as much to put a child through the same grade twice as
it does to put two children through once? Everything which helps the child
to learn quickly is real economy. Only if a child is healthy will he do
the required work. Otherwise he will hold back his classmates as well as
himself. Health becomes the greatest possible economy and if there were no
other grounds for asking that supervision of health be exercised over all
children, this would be enough.
Our Public Schools can succeed only in proportion to the cooperation which
they receive from the community. We have spoken of effective organization.
If this is demanded by the community, we shall get the worth of our money.
If a community demands teachers who believe in public education at State
expense, the demand will be supplied. If the people of a community are
determined that American ideals shall be instilled into the minds of their
children, rather that the vaporing of foreign agitators, the schools in
that community will have truly American teachers.
In return for all this, the community must do its part. We must give the
teacher a place among us. He or she must feel at home with us because they
come into our homes. It is necessary for the teacher to know the home
background of the child if intelligent direction is to be given. We cannot
expect wholehearted work without some measure of appreciation.
How long since you have attended any school activities? The enterprises
which the teacher promotes in order to show the child how to work with
other children, fit him for the part he is going to play in mature
activity, and are as important as the work of the class room. The success
of these enterprises depends upon your support, not only from the
standpoint of the money which is spent, but because the child will have
faith in this instruction and will believe in its importance if we, as
parents, show him that we also believe. These enterprises are the links in
the chain which the teacher offers as a tie between the school and the
community. The community must not lose hold of its end of the chain.
As individuals we have three ways in which we can become a constructive
force for the betterment of the public Schools.
We can do it as voters, supporting measures which benefit the Public
Schools, and voting against the measures which are opposed to their
welfare.
We can do it by making our lives touch the lives of those directly
connected with the schools. This does not mean working through a committee
or an association. It means finding out for ourselves what the schools are
doing. It means becoming acquainted with, and learning to know, the
aspirations and the abilities of the teachers who guide the destinies of
our children during school hours.
Finally, we can give our support as parents. The child is a healthy animal
as a rule, and has very little natural desire for an education. We must
show him that the way to success in the world lies down the long road of
education. We must make this road reasonably attractive. We must show him
the education is his greatest asset.
The Public School which brings together the children of the rich and the
poor alike is the one great agency which makes for a responsible
citizenship. Our children must know that the right to go to a Public
School has been fought for. They must know what it costs in terms of money
and sacrifice. We must realize that on the organization and influence of
our Public School system depends the perpetuity of our Republic.
Copyright, 1923, by The Masonic Service Association of the United States of
America. The contents of this Bulletin must nor be reproduced, in whole or
in part without permission. Published monthly by The Masonic Service
Association of the United States under the auspices of its member Grand
Jurisdictions.
