Another serious fault of our public system of education is its failure to give equal oppor tunity to all sections and classes. The more backward sections, or those less fortunate in their economic life, cannot give the same oppor tunities for education as the more advanced and wealthy sections. From the standpoint of the influence of education on national life this is unfortunate. To nationalize education in this respect, it is proposed that the national government should equalize these variations so that part of the wealth of the whole people will be available for those portions of the coun try not able to develop public education to the highest standard.
It is proposed that the national government should consider not only the matter of support but also that of control, at least so far as to establish minimum standards of education and teaching, and to develop the principles on which public education should be based. For to pro mote national in place of local, provincial, and sectional development and interests, the princi ples must be determined at one centre, and not at 48 centres. It is recognized that this will be even more necessary in the future, because of the revolution in the industrial and social systems of the country, and the great importance of national development and life in connection with the world interests and responsibilities of the nation. As the old notiqns of State rights have been overthrown in the economic and po litical world, and as the nation has taken over many of the early powers of the States in these respects in order to gain greater efficiency in national development, so it is proposed that the same policy should be pursued in the mat ter of education. For it is only through the resources of the whole nation that the expense of nationalizing education can be met, and only through national control can those principles and minimum standards be established which will best promote national interests.
A third weakness of the public school sys tem under individual State control is the failure to hold a good proportion of the pupils for the full course in both elementary and secondary schools, and to train them efficiently. About two-thirds of the pupils, boys and girls, leave the public school before they reach the age of 14, and enter industrial, commercial, and agri cultural pursuits poorly trained. Hardly 1 per cent of the 12 or more millions of persons engaged in agriculture have received adequate training for this pursuit. Much the same can be said of the 14 millions engaged in manu facturing and mechanical pursuits. Similarly the State systems make for great inequality in the teaching force. Of the 212,000 teachers for rural schools nearly one-third have an educa tion in quality below the ninth grade, and an other one-third not above the 10th grade. That
is, 150,000 out of 212,000 rural teachers have inadequate preparation for teaching and the remaining one-third have only an average high school course with one or two years of normal school training. Here again it is only through greater national aid and control that we can secure the greatest influence of public educa tion on national development.
Recent tendencies in American public edu cation have tended to emphasize still further the dose relationship of education and national life. There is more and more effort to make education richer and broader; to provide more opportunities for the masses for a complete education from the kindergarten through the university; to increase the number and variety of agencies and institutions for education and development, such as playgrounds, lectures, continuation schools, correspondence, evening, and summer schools; to use school plants as community centres; to extend the benefits of free education not only to all children but to all the people; to pass beyond the older conceptions of moral and book education,. to new types; to emphasize physical education, involving not only physical training but free medical examination and care of health—in short, to develop the physical as completely and with as much care as the mental being; to give opportunity not only for general education bat also for types that will fit for specific vocations, and to provide special teachers for vocational guidance in order to help pupils select the voca tion for which they are best adapted. A demand for a special type of education, military educa tion, is due to the emergency brought on by the world war; but it is advocated by many as a necessary and permanent kind, in order to provide for national safety. It is evident that these tendencies are certain to have im portant effects on our national life. The effort to extend the control of the national government over education, through the pro posal to create a department of education with a cabinet officer, is another plan to relate edu cation still more closely to national life.
Bibliography.—Blaclanar, Frank W., 'His tory of Federal and State Aid to Higher Edu cation in the United States) (Washington 1890)Carlton, Frank T., (Economic Influences upon fr.ducational Progress in the United States, 1820-1850> (Madison, Wis., 1908) • Jenks, Jere miah W., 'Citizenship and the Schools) (New York 1906) ; Judd, Charles H., of a Democratic System of Education) (Boston 1918) ; New Possibilities in Education) (An nals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. LXVII, Philadelphia, Sep tember 1916) ; articles by various authors.