1705037594

1705037595 Into the education of the great majority of children there enters as an important part their contribution to the daily labor of the household and the farm, or, at least, of the household. It is one of the serious consequences of the rapid concentration of population into cities and large towns, and of the minute division of labor which characterizes modern industries, that this wholesome part of education is less easily secured than it used to be when the greater part of the population was engaged in agriculture. Organized education must, therefore, supply in urban communities a good part of the manual and moral training which the coöperation of children in the work of father and mother affords in agricultural communities. Hence the great importance in any urban population of facilities for training children to accurate handwork, and for teaching them patience, forethought, and good judgment in productive labor.

1705037596

1705037597 Lastly, the school should teach every child, by precept, by example, and by every illustration its reading can supply, that the supreme attainment for any individual is vigor and loveliness of character. Industry, persistence, veracity in word and act, gentleness and disinterestedness should be made to thrive and blossom during school life in the hearts of the children who bring these virtues from their homes well started, and should be planted and tended in the less fortunate children. Furthermore, the pupils should be taught that what is virtue in one human being is virtue in any group of human beings, large or small—a village, a city or a nation; that the ethical principles which should govern an empire are precisely the same as those which should govern an individual; and that selfishness, greed, falseness, brutality, and ferocity are as hateful and degrading in a multitude as they are in a single savage.

1705037598

1705037599 The education thus outlined is what I think should be meant by democratic education. It exists to-day only among the most intelligent people, or in places singularly fortunate in regard to the organization of their schools; but though it be the somewhat distant ideal of democratic education, it is by no means an unattainable ideal. It is the reasonable aim of the public school in a thoughtful and ambitious democracy. It, of course, demands of a kind of teacher much above the elementary-school teacher of the present day, and it also requires a larger expenditure upon the public school than is at all customary as yet in this country. But that better kind of teacher and that larger expenditure are imperatively called for, if democratic institutions are to prosper, and to promote continuously the real welfare of the mass of the people. The standard of education should not be set at the now attained or the now attainable. It is the privilege of public education to press toward a mark remote.

1705037600

1705037601 Notes

1705037602

1705037603 function, the work that education is designed to do; the natural and proper action of education.

1705037604

1705037605 cipher, do sums in arithmetic. Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic are called the 3 R’s.

1705037606

1705037607 diligent, hard-working, industrious, steady in application, attentive to duties.

1705037608

1705037609 rational, sensible; intelligent; having reason or understanding; not absurd or foolish.

1705037610

1705037611 simultaneously, all at the same time; all taking place at one time.

1705037612

1705037613 computer, a person whose duty requires a knowledge of figures and computing.

1705037614

1705037615 impaired, weakened; damaged.

1705037616

1705037617 popular education, education for the mass of people; democratic education.

1705037618

1705037619 of the moment, of the time that affords an opportunity; of the present.

1705037620

1705037621 Plato （427-347 B.C.）, the eminent Greek philosopher, made such a statement in his Republic .

1705037622

1705037623 laborious, laboring; doing unskilled labor.

1705037624

1705037625 model commonwealth, the body of people constituting a state or politically organized community that serves as an example for imitation. Plato’s Republic is an attempt at presenting such an organization.

1705037626

1705037627 extraordinary, beyond or out of the common order or method; not usual, customary, regular, or ordinary.

1705037628

1705037629 one generation ago . Around 1865 when the American Civil War ended. The average time in which children are ready to replace parents is reckoned at one third of a century or at thirty years as a time measure.

1705037630

1705037631 our Southern States, the southern states of the United States of America.

1705037632

1705037633 feudal society . In medieval Europe, society was based on the relation between vassal and superior arising from the holding of lands in feud.

1705037634

1705037635 clergy, the body of men set apart, by due ordination, to the service of God, in the Christian church, in distinction from the laity.

1705037636

1705037637 Napoleonic wars . The wars against the encroachments of Napoleon were fought in the years between 1799 and 1815.

1705037638

1705037639 twenty-seven years old, that is, since 1870.

1705037640

1705037641 meteorology, the science or the branch of physics treating of the atmosphere and its phenomena, especially its variations of heat and moisture, its winds and storms, and others.

1705037642

1705037643 entwined, twisted or wreathed together or around; included.

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