SCHOOL 



SCHOOL 



Nearly all schools 150 years ago were under 

 Church control, and a good deal of attention 

 was given to religious instruction. The first 

 school readers were filled with admonitions 

 against frivolity and with warnings of the fu- 

 ture state of the wicked. The United States 

 blazed the way for the world in declaring in its 

 new Constitution in 1787 that "no law re- 

 specting the establishment of religion or pro- 

 hibiting the free exercise thereof" should be 

 passed. It has become the sole business of 

 public school systems to train boys and girls 

 in mathematics and trte sciences, in literature, 

 in music and in those vocational and domestic 

 arts which prepare them for lives of economic 

 independence and usefulness to their communi- 

 ties and to the state. 



Schools have become specialized and systems 

 have been unified until now boys and girls find 



a straight educational pathway leading from 

 the kindergarten to the state university, with 

 tuition free all along the way. Any boy or girl, 

 given good health and determination, without 

 regard to wealth, may pass through these 

 schools, step by step, quitting the highest in- 

 stitution at last with an endowment of knowl- 

 edge infinitely beyond the wildest dreams of 

 mankind a hundred years ago. 



In the following articles various phases of 

 school systems are discussed. The schools of 

 Canada are described in the articles on the 

 various provinces under the subhead Education, 

 and in the article CANADA, subtitle Education. 

 Educational conditions in each of the European 

 countries are described under the subhead Edu- 

 cation in the respective articles dealing with 

 those countries. EJ>J. 



Consult Dewey's Schools of To-Morrow. 



Public Schools 



Public schools include all schools that are 

 supported by public funds. In the United States 

 they are classified as common, or elementary, 

 schools, high schools, evening schools, vacation 

 schools, etc. All public schools are conducted 

 according to the law of the state in which they 

 are located ; they are therefore under state con- 

 trol. The first settlers in America, whatever 

 their nationality, recognized the importance of 

 education, and public schools were among the 

 first institutions founded by them. These 

 schools are a monument to the wisdom of the 

 forefathers, for through them they made educa- 

 tion the chief comer stone of the foundation 

 upon which American institutions were to be 

 reared. Says E. E. White: 



With matchless wisdom they Joined liberty and 

 learning In a perpetual and holy alliance, bind- 

 ing the latter to bless every child with Instruction 

 which the former Invents with the rights and 

 duties of citizenship. They made education and 

 sovereignty coextensive by making both uni- 

 versal. 



Common Schools. Common schools arc those 

 h pive instruction in the common branches 

 and whose work extends from the first grade to 

 the eighth grade, inclusive. While early at- 

 tempts to provide elementary education were 

 made in Virginia, and by the Dutch in New 

 Amsterdam (New York), it is to Massachu- 

 setts that we must look for the beginning of 

 the American common school and the Ameri- 

 can system of public education. In 1635 t he- 

 people of Boston assembled in town meet- 

 ing, requested Philemon Purmont to become 



schoolmaster and voted him thirty acres of 

 land in part pay for his services. The school 

 begun by Mr. Purmont later became the Bos- 

 ton Latin School, and has had continuous exist- 

 ence to the present time. Other settlements 

 followed Boston's example, and within the next 

 ten years common schools were established in 

 all the New England settlements. In 1647 the 

 General Court of Massachusetts ordered every 



I V NEW ENGLAND 



Monitor examining slates in a school In colonial 

 days. 



town having fifty families to appoint a teacher, 

 whose wages were to be paid by the parents 

 of the children he taught or by the inhabitants 

 in general. At the same time townships having 

 one hundred families were required to estab- 

 lish a grammar school to fit youth for college. 

 The law establishing these two grades of 

 schools laid the foundation of the public school 

 system in the United States. Three years later 

 a similar law was passed in Connecticut, but 

 Rhode Island made no attempt to form a 

 school system until 1700. 



The Dutch established a system of public 

 schools before New Netherlands was taken by 



