The Success of the Public Schools 89 



school alone. He is educated by his home, by the city, 

 the neighborhood, the condition of the street, the social 

 status in which he appears, the very climate, the atmos- 

 phere in short, by external impulse that reaches and 

 plays upon the pliant tendencies of his youthful soul, 

 by his whole environment. A boy trained in our schools 

 would find himself strangely handicapped if dropped 

 suddenly into the Soudan, Persia, or even certain coun- 

 tries of Europe. The church helps, the city helps, the 

 parks help, and the gardens, even the flowing waters of 

 the streams; but after all it is the schools which, in my- 

 judgment, lend that essential touch which makes the 

 citizens who save the commonwealth. 



But it is argued further that this can not be so, be- 

 cause the schools are failing so largely to reach our chil- 

 dren, so many, it is said, are not in the schools ; enroll- 

 ment does not meet the statistics of population. It is 

 said truthfully that many children are not enrolled, not 

 subject to the very influences for which people so will- 

 ingly and lavishly pay. For instance, in Iowa in 1914 

 the number of persons between five and twenty-one years 

 was about 770,000; the enrollment was only about 

 500,000. A system, no matter how enthusiastically pro- 

 claimed and supported, can scarcely, it is said, be es- 

 teemed successful when it really reaches only two-thirds 

 of those for whom it is intended. 



But let us not be too sure that we see the fact . It is 

 trite that the age-limit we have selected is extreme. 

 Thousands of children are not sent to school so early, 

 and only the fewest of young people are in grades or 

 even high schools as late as the age of twenty-one. Our 



