112 THE SCHOOL 



identical stimuli on different minds, and advise the boy of literary 

 ability to take the college preparatory course, the one with business 

 instincts to take the commercial course, and the one with a turn 

 for mechanics to pursue the manual-training or mechanic-arts course . 

 In this way the elementary school may become of much greater 

 benefit to society than it is at present. 



The elementary school can, however, guide only the first steps 

 of the student. After he has fully entered upon the work of the 

 secondary school it becomes one of the chief duties of that institution 

 to train him to make intelligent selection among courses and subjects 

 of study. 



There remain to be considered three problems of the highest 

 importance in the administration of the American school --the 

 problem of compulsory attendance, the problem of the supply of 

 teachers, and the problem of finance. 



Most of the Northern States of the Union have enacted com- 

 pulsory-education laws, more or less stringent in their nature. 

 These laws are not, however, strictly enforced. In the South there 

 is not even a pretense made of compulsory school attendance. 

 Several reasons may be assigned for the laxity that undoubtedly 

 exists in the enforcement of compulsory-education laws: a wide- 

 spread repugnance to state interference with the supposed liberties 

 of parents; the opposition of the employers of child labor, such as the 

 cotton manufacturers of the South, the coal-mine owners of Penn- 

 sylvania, the glass-makers of New Jersey, the sweat-shops of New 

 York, and the small traders in all large cities; the opposition of 

 private schools which dread a diversion of their children to the public 

 school; the opposition of some foreign-born, non-English-speaking 

 communities, founded on the fear that their children would, in the 

 public school, lose the use of their native tongue; and, lastly, the lack 

 of adequate administrative machinery for the enforcement of existing 

 laws. 



Gradually to overcome this widespread opposition to compulsory 

 school attendance the following measures are suggested : 



(1) Governmental registration and inspection of all private and 

 parochial schools, to the end that no school may be permitted to 

 exist which does not teach its pupils the English language and the 

 elementary duties of citizenship. There should be no interference - 

 public opinion in America would not tolerate any interference - 

 with endowed, proprietary, or sectarian schools, if such interference 

 would in any way limit the liberty of teaching or the rights of parents 

 to determine the schools in which their children shall be trained. 

 Such interference on the part of the state should be forbidden for 

 educational as well as political reasons, because the competition of 

 private schools is essential to the well-being and the growth of public 



