TEE AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL 301 



Without public education genuine democracy is impossible; there- 

 fore the democratic state must make provision for free common schools. 

 From every point of view, however, especially from that of the pupil's 

 own good, those common schools should be regarded as investments 

 from which the state, if it would prosper, must get the best possible re- 

 turns. All measures in education, be they of the kindergarten or of 

 the college, should be judged mainly from the standpoint of an en- 

 lightened political economy, from the standpoint, that is, of securing 

 the greatest good for the greatest number by the least expenditure of 

 social force. 



Quite as much for our sakes as for theirs we require all children of 

 certain ages to attend school and, directly or indirectly, tax ourselves 

 to pay for this free teaching. But in paying taxes and in voting for a 

 school board — supposing even that we do the first cheerfully and the 

 second with some shadow of knowledge of the candidates — we are ful- 

 filling but a small part of our duty to youth and to ourselves. There 

 are at least two other obligations. The first of these — since we compel 

 the child to go — is to make sure that his schooling is the best obtain- 

 able; the second — since we contribute so much to the cause of educa- 

 tion — is to make certain that we secure the equivalent of this money, 

 in the quality of citizenship which the schools produce. If we ac- 

 knowledge the wisdom of educating every child ; if, not simply recogniz- 

 ing it, we actually compel it and set up a system against which private 

 enterprise is powerless to compete, it would seem but plain duty to 

 make this compulsory education humanly perfect. Even failing, how- 

 ever, to recognize this moral obligation, it still remains extraordinary 

 that a nation so shrewd as ours, lavishing millions upon free education, 

 should not look more closely to it that industrial capacity, mental and 

 physical strength, and effective citizenship result. 



Being, so to speak, a protected monopoly, the public school, to 

 Justify its favored position, should do as much for every child as any 

 other means of education, were it free to maintain itself, could accom- 

 plish. As long as the claim can anywhere truthfully be made that 

 parents must send their children to private schools in order to their best 

 education, just so long the public schools are falling short of their full 

 and essential service, a service that involves the giving, not of mere in- 

 struction, but of real education. To prepare youth for civic duty and 

 for industrial, business or professional life, the free schools must fur- 

 nish those means of intercourse, those fundamentals of a civilized so- 

 ciety, which the casting of a ballot and the pursuit of a business or a 

 trade demand; but, in addition and far more importantly, they must 

 lay such foundations that every youth, broadly speaking, may become 

 the best workman, the most successful man of affairs, the completest 

 citizen that it is possible for him to be. 



