in rules of health, in order that teachers may more intelli-
gently look after the physical condition of their pupils.
It will be noted that the addition to the duties of the school
in the care of the health of its pupils is made primarily on
the grounds that the school cannot discharge its regular
function effectively when the children are not in a healthy
condition; and therefore, if the home neglects the health
of the children, the school must attend to it.

Many home duties relegated to the school. It has been
shown that, in consequence of the neglect by the home of the
health of its children from ignorance or indifference, it has



94 THE PROFESSION OF TEACHING

become necessary for the school to add to its recognized
functions certain duties relating to the health and the phys-
ical condition of its pupils. Likewise other duties of the
home, such as the inculcating of right habits of speech and
conduct, have in many cases been assigned to the school, in
part or altogether. Any one who desires to do so can ex-
tend the list of legitimate home duties that have been added
to the school because the home either does not or cannot
properly discharge them. In view of the large number of
the former obligations of the home which have been turned
over to the school, it is sometimes rather difficult to draw
the line just where, in actual practice, the function of the
home ceases and that of the school begins.

Duties of church and community imposed upon the
school. Similarly, the church and the community do not
at the present time perform all the functions in the prep-
aration of the child for adult life which formerly they did.
It is not necessary, however, to enumerate the former church
and community duties toward the child which these in-
stitutions no longer fulfill, as any one can satisfy himself
upon this point by an investigation of conditions in his own
locality. As a result of the failure of these institutions to
perform certain of their legitimate functions, supplemen-
tary institutions, and among these the school, have come into
existence to assist in meeting those i)articular spiritual and
social needs which the older institutions can no longer com-
pletely supply. In this way many of the functions which
formerly were regarded as belonging to the church have been
transferred to the school. Similarly, certain needs of the
child which in a simpler civilization were satisfied by the
community life and effort came by degrees to be taken over
by the school.

School overburdened with work of other institutions.
Thus the school came in the course of time to be regarded



THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 05

as the best institution for meeting those needs of the child
for which other social institutions had ceased to provide.
Naturally, this has led to the school's becoming over-
burdened with a multiplicity of tasks and duties of various
kinds, many of which do not rightly belong to it. In fact,
the school has wiUingly assumed so many of the duties that
have been neglected or could not well be performed by
other social institutions that it has come to be considered
by many persons as a veritable dumping ground for the
neglected obligations of other institutions. On the other
hand, it is believed that the school should adapt itself to
the changing social conditions and needs and take over, at
least temporarily, the work of the other institutions whose
neglect and inefficiency is hindering the work of the school,
with the understanding that it will pass back such work
to these institutions as soon as they are aroused to a con-
sciousness of their full duty and are able to perform it.

All social institutions have a part in the education of the
child. It is evident that not the school alone, but the home,
the church, and all the institutions of society have a part
in the education of the child; and if they all discharged
their duties properly, he would be completely equipped
for his work in life. In the early civilization, when the boy
throughout his childhood and youth could associate with
his father and assist with daily occupations, the home more
fully contributed to his education than is possible under
present conditions. The vocational changes which have
been brought about through the use of machinery and the
subdivision of labor among large groups of workers in mills
and factories, and through the extension of commerce and all
departments of business have taken people more and more
out of their homes into the larger contact with the commu-
nity and national life. As a result of these changed condi-
tions and the constantly increasing educational require-



96 THE PROFESSION OF TEACHING

raents, the home has found itself unable to give its children
the necessary education. Therefore each of the other social
institutions that have been called upon to assist with the
task should do its part. It is the failure of these institu-
tions in so many cases to do this that has laid such a heavy
burden upon the school.

Social institutions should not impose their duties upon
the school. The willingness of the school to assume any
task that has for its aim the education of the child should
not be made the excuse for other institutions to impose their
rightful duties upon it. The home, the church, and the
community should each consider its part in this great work
of educating the young, not only as a sacred responsibility,
but also as a high privilege which it does not desire to dele-
gate to any one. It is in these institutions, and particularly
in the home, that the child must receive the basal elements
of his education before he is old enough to go to school. In
the home are consciously or unconsciously sowed the seeds
of the ideals that are to be built into his character later on.
It is most important, then, that the ideals, thus formed,
should be of a kind to furnish a true foundation upon which
the school may build in the development and establishment
of character. It is evident that the home has its peculiar
responsibilities with regard to its children, and the tendency
to shift these responsibilities over to the school should not
be encouraged.

The school voluntarily assumes duties of other institu-
tions. No doubt, it is true that the school is in a measure
to blame for other institutions having imposed their duties
upon it; for the school has voluntarily taken upon itself
many obligations in the care of its pupils that distinctly
belong to the duties which the home should be forced to
perform. The only valid reason why the school should em-
ploy physicians to examine into and attend to the physical



THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 97

conditions and health of the pupils in the public schools is
the fact that in so many cases the home neglects these
matters. The only excuse for expecting the school to pro-
vide food and clothing for any of its pupils is that in some
particular cases children are seriously handicapped in their
school work, because the home has failed to furnish these
necessities.

In cases where the school finds itself handicapped in the
fulfillment of its legitimate functions, because of the failure
of other institutions, it must of necessity endeavor to pro-
duce right conditions for the efiicient discharge of its own
function. It is evident that the school cannot properly
fulfill its function in the education of its pupils unless
they are in a proper physical condition. Hence, when the
child is suffering from poor health or some physical defect,
such as defective vision or hearing that interferes with his
work in school, and the home does not attend to the matter,
the school must do so. If the child is improperly clothed
because of poverty in the home, or if he is imperfectly
nourished for the same reason, the school must provide him
with proper food and clothing in order that he may be in
the right physical condition to receive the benefits of the
school. The part of the school in supplying those mental
and moral needs of the child which should be cared for by
some other institution need not be discussed at this point,
as the duty of the school in this case is even more apparent
than in the correction of wrong physical conditions. The
preparation of the child for vocational usefulness is another
duty that many persons would lay upon the school, and
this will be considered at some length in later chapters.

Distinct function of the school. Notwithstanding the
number and variety of duties that are laid upon the school
and the difference of opinion regarding its legitimate work,
it has a fairly distinct, though complex, function from a



98 THE PROFESSION OF TEACfflNG

sociological point of view. This has already been com-
mented upon and may be briefly stated as the furnishing of
the child with the race facts and race experiences that he
must have in order to rightly prepare him for his place
in the civilization of the day, when this information and
this experience is not already provided by some other so-
cial institution. Parents, boards of education, and teachers
should have a clear understanding of this function of the
school. Unless these persons do have this definite and clear
conception of the place of the school among the social in-
stitutions, the needed changes and improvements in the
school will not be made and progress in it will be slow, if,
indeed anything like true progress can be expected.

Those who direct the work in the schools and those who
teach in them should have sufficient knowledge of sociology
and of the duties of the existing social institutions to en-
able them to comprehend the real function of the school
as a social organization. Education should make boys and
girls socially efficient; that is, it should prepare them to
take their places in their various spheres in life and perform
their parts according to the best standards of the insti-
tutions that make up human society. This includes home
ideals and home duties; church ideals and church obliga-
tions; state standards and state service; vocational stand-
ards and vocational efficiency. This definition of social
efficiency with what it embraces is simple enough to be
tinderstood by every teacher and to show him what is his
true relation, as an instructor of the young, to all institu-
tional life and effort.

Important race facts in the curriculum of the school.
The race facts which the schools are expected to teach are
those which have been approved by civilization. These
have been culled from the accumulated experience of
scholars and scientists in all ages, and have been classified



THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 99

into groups or fields of human knowledge. An understand-
ing of these world and time gathered facts cannot be gained
by the young through actual experience and observation,
but must be acquired through a study of the recorded ex-
periences and conclusions of the countless number of learned
men who have devoted their lives to the discovery and the
classifications of these truths. Inasmuch as this great body
of facts is an epitome of the present civilization, it is of the
utmost importance that the youth of the present day be
taught, at least, the elements of it, in order that they may
understand the industrial and social conditions of the civili-
zation in which they live.

This body of necessary information which the child can-
not get from direct experience has become so great and so
varied, because of the additions that have been made to
it from time to time, that neither the home nor any other
institution except the school can supply it. Hence it must
be taught in the school and by teachers who not only com-
prehend present civilization and its needs, but who also
understand its relation to life and know its cultural value
in the preparation of the young for their place in society.
The teacher must have a clear conception of the function
of the school as an institution of society and also of his
responsibility as an instructor, since it is through his efforts
that this function is to be realized. He must also recognize
the fact that his work is largely supplementary to that of
the other social institutions, and that, therefore, it must
partake somewhat of the characteristics of them all.

Test of the subject-matter of the curriculum. This so-
ciological point of view of the function of the school affords
a reasonable basis for determining the subject-matter of
the curriculum. Boys and girls as social beings must be
fitted for the places in the institutional life which they are
soon to occupy as men and women; and in order that they



100 THE PROFESSION OF TEACHING

may be so fitted and be ready to take an active part in the
various departments of society, the school must assist them
in making the proper preparation. If the subject-matter of
the school is related to the present institutional life and is
taught in such a way as to contribute to the betterment of
society by leading the young to strive for its loftiest ideals,
then it has a rightful place in the curriculum. If, however,
it does not contribute to the desirable growth of the young
and therefore to the good of society, it should not be given
a place in the curriculum. This naturally presupposes that
the subject-matter of the school must be determined by the
civilization which it interprets, by the needs of the civili-
zation of to-day, not by the practices, the conventions, and
the needs of the past. This law should be more gener-
ally recognized by educational leaders than it is; and the
courses of study in use in our schools should be so modified
that they will better interpret the institutional life and
needs of the present. When this is done, the school will
more completely perform the function for which it came
into existence.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Social Psychology, Ross, pp. 231-33.

Types of Teaching, Earhart, pp. 22-26, 138-43, 150-63.

Education, Thorndike, p. 161.

Lectures on Teaching, Fitch, pp. 51-53.

Education and Utility, Bagley, pp. 96, 166-79.

The Mind and Its Education, Belts, pp. 56-67.

Art oj Education, Howerth, pp. 136-43.

Brief Course in Teaching Process, Strayer, pp. 12-15.

Changing Conceptions of Education, Cubberley.

EXERCISES

1. Name some things that you have in your home, that were not in
homes five hundred years ago. Name some things in your commu-
nity that were not known five himdred years ago. Name some reasons
why these things have come into existence.



THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 101

2. Name some new thinps and some new improvements that are being
sought by men to-day.

5. Look up the history of the ancient Greek schools and tell: (a) Who
were the teachers, men or women, — young or old? {i) Who were the
pupils, boys or girls? (c) What subjects were studied in the schools?

Contrast the conditions in the ancient Greek schools with those in
the schools to-day.
4. What do you understand by the terms, "Evolution of the church,"
"Evolution of the home," "Evolution of the school"?

6. What vocations of the present day enable the boy to know his
father's work and his father at work? Name some vocation of men
that their sons have no opportunity of knowing, and explain why
this is so.

6. Write out in detail your idea of what a school should be.

7. What organizations have been formed during the past one hundred
years to aid the church, and the home? Discuss the work of each.

8. Name all the organizations in your community that have been formed
for human and social welfare. The organizations for men, the organi-
zations for women, the organizations for both men and women.

9. Name some of your early experiences that were later interpreted for
you by means of your studies in school.

10. "The schools should teach those things needed for adult life which
other institutions in the community do not teach."

In the light of this statement tell whether you think that: —
(a) All schools should teach the same subjects; (6) that girls should
study the same subjects as boys and give reasons for your opinion
in each case.

Write a list of subjects that you think should be taught in all schools.

11. Explain what you understand (a) by the term, "social institution";
(6) by the phrase, "The welfare of society"; (c) by the statement,
"Man is a social being." Discuss briefly each of these topics.



CHAPTER VI

THE RELATION OF THE SCHOOL TO THE STATE

Purpose of chapter stated. In the preceding chapter, it
was shown that the school as a social institution came into
existence to help the home and the other institutions that
were concerned with the problems of child welfare and edu-
cation, in the task of preparing the young for their adult
place in society. The more important of the recognized
functions of the institution, thus established to satisfy a
great social need, were also briefly outlined. This discus-
sion had reference more particularly to the value of the
school to the child than to its function in a democracy like
our own or to its obligations for the fulfillment of its
function to the State and the Nation to which it owes its
existence. In this chapter some of the obligations of the
school to society at large and its relation to the State will
be enumerated, and some of the ways in which the school
should fulfill these obligations will be discussed. In a dem-
ocracy like ours, which has undertaken to place educational
advantages within the reach of all, the obligations of the
school to the State are particularly binding; and, therefore,
it is but reasonable that the school should be expected to
educate the young of the land for eSicient citizenship.

The American free-school system. All experiments with
democratic government have proved that the institutions
of liberty and equality can be preserved only through the
intelligence of all the people. Every attempt to establish
and maintain self-government where there was a state of
general ignorance among the masses has proved a dismal
failure. Nothing shows the wisdom of the founders of our



THE SCHOOL AND THE STATE 103

Republic more clearly than their attitude toward educa-
tion and the problem of enlightening the masses. It is evi-
dent that they clearly foresaw the relation of education to
the welfare and stability of the Nation which they founded.
Washington, Jefferson, and their associates in the gigan-
tic undertaking of establishing a new nation upon the prin-
ciples of liberty and equality, understood the necessity
of educating all the people of the land for self-govern-
ment in order that the new nation might attain and main-
tain the ideals upon which and for which it had been
founded. Washington clearly understood that upon the en-
lightenment of the masses depended the success and future
greatness of the new Republic, as his many utterances upon
the subject show. He endeavored at every opportunity to
impress upon his countrymen the necessity of universal
education. His last official message to the Nation con-
tained an eloquent appeal for the establishment and main-
tenance of schools that were based upon a principle which
is as important to-day as when he first issued his call. He
urged his countrymen to " promote as an object of primary
importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowl-
edge; for," he said, " in proportion as the structure of gov-
ernment gives force to public opinion, it is essential that
public opinion should be enlightened."

The appeals and efforts of the wise leaders of the early
days of our national life and of all the far-sighted advo-
cates of free and universal education were not without re-
sponse from the people. As the result of the agitation for
the education of all the people, the conviction became gen-
eral that universal education was essential for the stability
of the democracy, and steps were taken to provide for the
establishment of a school system that would make such
education possible. In order that this new nation might be
a government of an enlightened people, large tracts of pub-



104 THE PROFESSION OF TEACfflNG

lie lands were set aside for the purpose of providing funds
to found and maintain common schools, state normal
schools, state universities, and various other free institu-
tions of learning.

The American free-school system, which grew out of the
combined efforts of all the agencies for universal education,
is one of the most important and most significant results of
the long struggle of liberty and enlightenment against ig-
norance and oppression. It has not yet reached the high
development which its advocates expect it to attain, and it
is not without many flaws; but it is the grandest effort that
has yet been made by any nation for the unifying, nation-
alizing, and educating of a great people of diverse origin,
attainments, and interests. '

Unity through common knowledge of race facts. A com-
mon knowledge and acceptance of race facts and informa-
tion gives a certain degree of oneness or unity of feeling to
those who possess it. This is a desirable condition to be
secured among people belonging to the same country and
holding allegiance to the same government, and it is through
the instruction given in the public schools that it may be
attained. Primarily the schools of the land provide the
means through which the children of the West, the children
of the East, the children of the North, and the children of
the South may acquire such a knowledge and understand-
ing of the facts, gathered from the various sources of classi-
fied knowledge, as will enable them to take their places
later among their fellows in the social and business world.
These are the facts that have been evolved out of race ex-
periences; and, therefore, they are fundamental in the body
of information which all classes of people should possess.
They have been drawn from the fields of mathematics,
science, history, literature, art, and other departments of
practical knowledge. Since they have been taken from all



THE SCHOOL AND THE STATE 105

these departments of knowledge, they represent the useful
information and principles that one requires in everyday
life. Hence every individual should acquire as much of
this practical knowledge as he can. It is the common pos-
session of this body of knowledge out of universal race
experiences, that gives the unity of feeling and community
of interest among the citizens that would be impossible
without it. As a result of a common knowledge of these
world facts, it is possible for the people that come to our
shores from the various countries of Europe to have busi-
ness relations and simple social relations upon something
like a common ground. They all possess the same elemental,
basal knowledge as a starting-point for their intercourse.
All civilized peoples have practically agreed upon the simple,
fundamental facts and body of information to be imparted
to their children and it is the common knowledge thus
gained which " makes the whole world kin." The unifying
and civilizing value of this body of universal knowledge to
those who possess it should be better understood by those
persons who are concerned with the education of the young
and also by those who are engaged in the task of unifying
into a single nation the different races represented in our
commonwealth .

Schools a nationalizing force. The schools of any country,
besides being a unifying agency, are a nationalizing force,
as well. This is the direct result of instruction that tends to
produce national feeling, and the use and value of such in-
struction should not be overlooked. Geography, history,
and general information regarding passing events, all fur-
nish much material which, if properly used, becomes a po-
tent agency in producing national feeling. For example,
in our own schools the same general information is given
regarding the agricultural, industrial, and commercial
wealth of our country. The extent of her plains and forests.



106 THE PROFESSION OF TEACfflNG

the size and grandeur of her mountains, the number and
commercial value of her great rivers and lakes, the num-
ber, size, and importance of her cities, are all common sub-
jects for study. This general body of information about our
country that is taught in all our schools, besides unify-
ing knowledge, creates, or should create if properly taught,
a universal pride of country, and forges a bond between
those sharing it. Such instruction has a positive unifying
and nationalizing value.

Because of the nationalizing value of a knowledge of the
history of our country and the story of the achievements of