Peninsula Enterprise, October 1, 1887

Our Public Schools.

Infrastructure -- Public - Government : School administration

MR. EDITOR -- As the time for opening our public schools is at hand, I presume that any suggestions that may be offered, and which would in the least degree tend to increase their usefulness, would not be wholly out of place at this time, and not altogether unacceptable to those who are mainly interested in their efficiency, nor to the teachers and officers who are charged with the responsibility of their management. It is a fact that is indisputable, and which must be apparent to every interested observer, that our schools are not fulfilling as they should the purpose for which they were designed. I believe this assertion is applicable to our county and State generally, and especially so to this district, (Metompkin [District]). The public schools of this district, owing to the exceedingly limited time which they have been run for the past year or two, have been scarcely any benefit to the children attending them, they almost forgetting in the long vacation whatever they had learned in the very short school terms. This state of affairs reduces our public schools to almost a farce, and renders them but stumbling blocks in the way of the educational advancement of our children, rather than promotion of that great end. They have almost supplanted the many excellent private schools that existed in our county and State before their establishment, and which in some respects offered our children, comparatively, superior educational advantages and at a sum not much in excess of the present establishment.

So far as I am competent to judge, I believe that the present system has but one point of superiority over the other, and that consists in the fact, that it is in one sense of the word free. So far as the poorer class of our children are concerned, who would not be able to pay for private tuition, this latter fact, covers a multitude of its sins.

There is something wrong somewhere, that this deplorable condition of our school system exists. This generation of children are in a sad predicament, educationally; they are seeking at our hands the "Bread of Knowledge," and "We give them a stone." They are wasting their precious opportunities -- which with many are exceedingly limited -- and frittering away the golden moments at the only (to them) accessible spring of knowledge, which has been at its best, but a fitful stream, and so far as present results are concerned, had about as well cease entirely its flow.

This generation of children in after years, instead of uttering words of praise, to our memory, and rearing monuments to perpetuate our wisdom, may with some reason, reproach us for our neglect, and point the finger of scorn at our unmarked graves.

I hold, sir, that in longer countenancing the present inexcusably bad plight of our school system, by whatever conditions it may be produced, we of this generation, in whose hands the control of affairs rest, are not only perpetrating a gross wrong upon our children, but are also jeopardizing the perpetuation of our free institutions, which an enlightened people alone can preserve, and fully appreciate. In the inevitable course of nature, we of the present generation must soon pass off the stage of activity and life, and surrender the direction of matters, and commit the destiny of our State, into the hands of those very children, whom we, through indifference, are permitting to grow up in comparative ignorance. How great the reason then, that we should prepare them to assume the responsibility. If knowledge is the child of education, and in any sense the source of power, it is mournful to contemplate the depth of ignorance and weakness to which Virginia and her people must, by our folly sink, when compared to the enlightened communities by which she is surrounded, and their consequent progress and power. That there is a remedy for the evil shown, is certain, and it behooves us to seek it out at once, and apply it to its removal. If it exists in the inefficiency of the law, let us go to work immediately and amend it. If laws extant are ample, let us see to it that they are enforced. If we are now taxed for school purposes to the utmost constitutional limit, and from want of money the schools are as we now find them, let us at the first opportunity amend the constitution, so that such a tax may be levied and collected, as will fully accomplish the desired purpose. If we do not now levy the maximum legal amount for school purposes, let us at once do so, and to that extent remove the stigma that now rests upon us, and blights our children. If the available funds are sufficient, but through the management are not yielding legitimate results, let us then have a new official deal, let us see to it that the personnel of the management is at once changed, and wherever there is an unnecessary leak, stop it. If the salary of the superintendent or other school officers is more than adequate for the service rendered, reduce it, and apply the saving where it will be earned. If possible, increase the pay of teachers, so that we can demand better teachers than some we now employ. -- Raise the standard of qualification necessary to teach, measured not solely by educational proficiency, but also by the aptitude an applicant displays in imparting to, and impressing upon the minds of children whatever information may be desirable. Let the school officials more frequently visit the schools under their care, and encourage the teachers and pupils in their work. Let them endeavor to enthuse, if possible, the teachers with a love for their profession and its duties, and impart a sense of the great responsibility resting in their hands. Let the scholars be shown the value of the efforts being made in their behalf, so that they will use and appreciate the opportunity presented. Let them talk to the people generally, and especially to the parents when convenient, and get them interested in the importance of education, and of the schools, as a factor in its acquirement, so that the success of the public schools, and the progress of their children will be leading subjects of interest to them, and withal, and I might say above all, let the teachers employed be such as are not working for the pecuniary reward alone incident to their labors, but let them be such as feel a kindly interest in the welfare of their pupils, and in the progress of whom, they feel they have such a reward as cannot be measured by the earth-scale of dollars and cents. With all these enumerated agencies working harmoniously and for the purpose indicated I am persuaded that a wonderful change for the better will soon be manifest in our schools, even though they be not operative for a longer time than six months of the year.

Another important factor that tends to a no inconsiderable degree to prescribe the sphere of usefulness of our public schools, is in many instances the extravagant expenditure in dress, in which the children are indulged by their parents. This fact while of itself not altogether objectionable, is in effect decidedly detrimental to one of the most beneficent features that commends the institution so warmly to the popular heart. From this cause our schools are in danger of degenerating to schools of dress, or temples of fashion, where the well dressed alone have the entree, rather than being as designed places of learning whose portals stand open alike to the richest or poorest child in the land. This fact alone to my certain knowledge keeps numbers of the poorer children away from the schools altogether. If they cannot present as good an appearance in dress as their schoolmates, rather than submit to the mortification which from this fact I am sorry to say, their young hearts are often made to feel, they stay away entirely, and thus in a great measure the very class that public schools were primarily designed to benefit, are deprived of the proffered advantages. Beside its disastrous effects upon the class of children named and the schools themselves, it entails such a burden upon the finances of many a father, and upon the patience and energies of many a poor mother, that they are at times tempted to pray that the brain which first conceived of schools had never been created.

This matter I am well aware is exceedingly difficult to deal with. Legislation upon the subject so that a uniform dress should be required of all public school children, would seem at present to be impracticable, if not impossible. So it appears to me that the remedy rests where in many cases the fault lies -- with the parents themselves. The richer ones of these can do if they will a great amount of good toward effecting a reform in this thing. They, by their favored position are able to set wholesome examples in this respect, that the poorer parents of children would be glad to follow. Instead of a rivalry in dress that is fatal to the educational prospects of many poor children, let the parents encourage by the example of their own children, extreme simplicity in this regard and together with the teachers let them foster a generous rivalry among the children in the supreme object they are seeking -- an education. The ideas herein outlined, however crude and incomplete they may be, I hope will be accepted by all those interested in the subject matter of this communication in the same spirit in which they were written. The writer feels that the welfare of our public school system and its effectiveness coupled as it is inseparably with the education of our children, are matters that for obvious reasons are paramount to any interest now claiming the notice of the public.

Hoping the attention of the people may be seriously directed toward the evils complained of, and that an intelligent public will at once proceed to remove them, I subscribe myself.

A FRIEND OF FREE SCHOOLS,

Seaside, Va., Sept. 22, '87.