92 On the Campus 



find help and inspiration ; if not in one way, then in an- 

 other, and the enrollment shall match not the school pop- 

 ulation only, but if possible the census entire. 



As it is, we lose so very much. We lose the summer al- 

 most wholly. We lose Saturday, and, I am sorry to say, 

 Sunday in large measure. More than all, we lose morale, 

 we lose control. In the long vacation we lose, at least in 

 part, what we have gained during the labor of the rest 

 of the year. When vacation comes we really change 

 teachers ; we really turn the children over to chance ; we 

 know not what we do; there is no superintendence, no 

 supervision. Why should we crowd the curriculum dur- 

 ing certain months of the year, at peril of both pupil 

 and subject, and let all the summer go waste? Why 

 shall vacation time not be given under supervision to the 

 things the children like to do in the summer, to organ- 

 ized play, to the rearing of chicks and plants, to domestic 

 science, to planting and sowing, to building kites, and 

 wagons, and telephones, and boats, to all industrial em- 

 ployment, leaving if you will the usual school calendar 

 less burdened for the proper presentation of subjects 

 more specifically informational, to civic instruction, to 

 the things of the mind, the things of the spirit? 



As things go now, in a state where the life of the Re- 

 public depends upon absolute attention and perpetual 

 vigilance, we voluntarily go off duty, go on leave, on 

 furlough, one-third of the time. No wonder men talk 

 of the failure of schools ; unless we repent we may have 

 the failure of the Republic to talk of before even we are 

 aware. 



But it is said that our schools are unsuccessful because 



