=The responsibility of the school.=--This education must come, in large
part, through the schools, but even these will fail until they come into
a full realization of the fact that their field of effort is life in the
large. Time was when the teacher thought she was employed to teach
geography, grammar, and arithmetic. Then she enlarged this to include
boys and girls. And now she needs to make another addition and realize
that her function is to teach boys and girls the subject of Life, using
the branches of study as a means to this end. In a report on the work of
the schools at Gary, Indiana, the statement is made that the first
purpose of these schools seems to be to produce efficient workers for
the mills. This seems to savor of the doctrine of educational
foreordination, and would make millwork and life synonymous. Life is
larger than any mill. We may be justified in educating one horse for the
plow and another for the race track, but this justification rests upon
the fact that horses are assets and not liabilities.
=Clean living.=--Clean living in this generation will, undeniably,
project itself into the next, and we have only to see to it that all the
activities of the school function in clean living in the child of
to-day, and we shall surely be safeguarding the interests of the child
of the future. But clean living means more than mere externals. The
daily bath, pure food, fresh air, and sanitary conditions are essential
but not sufficient in themselves.
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