Bill's School and Mine Part 6

It is generally admitted that wealthy American parents are too indulgent towards their children. However this may be, many an American father is determined that his sons shall not go through what he himself went through as a boy, forgetting that the hardships of his youth were largely the hardships of pioneer life which have vanished forever. No boy with good stuff in him and with a fair education unmixed with extravagant habits of living can possibly have more hardship nowadays than is good for him. Every young man must sooner or later stand by himself; and hardship, which in its essence is to be thrown on one's own resources, is the best school.

But the most alluring school of hardship, a sort of Summer School of the University of Hard Knocks, is a walking trip into the mountains to the regions of summer snow, carrying one's whole outfit on one's back as did the Kansas boys of '89, or indulging in the ownership of a pack-pony and a miner's tent as did D. and the writer in '95. The hardships of such a trip are of the old old type, the facing of all kinds of weather and the hunting for food, and they waken a thousand-fold deeper response than the most serious hunt for a job in a modern city.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

DENMARK HILL, April 1st, 1871.

_My Friends:_

It cannot but be pleasing to us to reflect, this day, that if we are often foolish enough to talk English without understanding it, we are often wise enough to talk Latin without knowing it. For this month retains its pretty Roman name, which means the month of Opening; of the light in the days, and the life in the leaves, and of the voices of birds, and of the hearts of men.

And being the month of Manifestation, it is pre-eminently the month of Fools;--for under the beatific influence of moral sunshine, or Education, the Fools always come out first.

But what is less pleasing to reflect upon, this spring morning, is, that there are some kinds of education which may be described, not as moral sunshine, but as moral moonshine; and that, under these, Fools come out both First--and Last.

We have, it seems, now set our opening hearts much on this one point, that we will have education for all men and women now, and for all girls and boys that are to be. Nothing, indeed, can be more desirable, if only we determine also what kind of education we are to have. It is taken for granted that any education must be good;--that the more of it we get, the better; that bad education only means little education; and that the worst we have to fear is getting none. Alas that is not at all so. Getting no education is by no means the worst thing that can happen to us. The real thing to be feared is getting a bad one.

RUSKIN.

The recent exchange of visits between Pennsylvanians and Wisconsinites has resulted in the organization of an a.s.sociation 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.{9}

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[L]

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 Munic.i.p.ality, which has been recently proposed, added to existing school work with provision for simple manual training and outdoor play would const.i.tute 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 a.s.sociated 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 compet.i.tors but who expects his compet.i.tors 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, Und nichts zu suchen Das war mein Sinn."

The youngster who goes on a hike for nothing will get everything, and to be fit for service is to be fit for life.

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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 a.s.sociated 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 compet.i.tors but who expects his compet.i.tors 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, Und nichts zu suchen Das war mein Sinn."

The youngster who goes on a hike for nothing will get everything, and to be fit for service is to be fit for life.

FOOTNOTES

A: The western prairies, except in the very center of the Mississippi Valley, are beautifully rolling, and they meet every stream with deeply carved bluffs. In the early days every stream was fringed with woods; and prairie and woodland, alike, knew nothing beyond the evenly balanced contest of indigenous life. There came, however, a succession of strange epidemics, as one after another of our noxious weeds gained foothold in that fertile land. I remember well several years when dog-fennel grew in every nook and corner of my home town in Kansas; then, after a few years, a variety of thistle grew to the exclusion of every other uncultivated thing; and then followed a curious epidemic of tumble-weed, a low spreading annual which broke off at the ground in the Fall and was rolled across the open country in countless millions by the Autumn winds. I remember well my first lone "beggar louse," and how pretty I thought it was! And my first dandelion, and of that I have never changed my opinion!

B: ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDER-LOG.

(From Kipling's Jungle-Book.)

Here we go in a flung festoon, Half way up to the jealous moon!

Don't you envy our pranceful bands?

Don't you wish your feet were hands?

Wouldn't you like if your tails were--so-- Curved in the shape of a cupid's bow?

Now you're angry, but--never mind-- Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

Here we sit in a branchy row, Thinking of beautiful things we know; Dreaming of deeds we mean to do, All complete in a minute or two-- Something n.o.ble and grand and good, Done by merely wishing we could.

Now we're going to--never mind-- Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

All the talk we ever have heard Uttered by bat, or beast, or bird-- Hide or scale or skin or feather-- Jabber it quickly and altogether!

Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!

Now we are talking just like men.

Let's pretend we are--never mind-- Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

This is the way of the Monkey-kind.

Then join our leaping lines that sc.u.mfish through the pines, That rocket by where light and high the wild grape swings.

By the rubbish in our wake, by the n.o.ble noise we make, Be sure, be sure, we're going to do some splendid things.

C: The site of an abandoned zinc mine, where a few of the Bethlehem boys go to swim.

D: Popular Science Monthly, October, 1910.