Читать книгу Introduction to the scientific study of education - Charles Hubbard Judd - Страница 39

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Such considerations as these lead to a clear understanding of the reasons why the state is undertaking in increasing degree the supervision of the details of school work. It is not enough that communities should open schools or that pupils should be compelled to attend; the quality of education must be such as to justify the expenditure of public money and the investment of the pupils’ time and energy in the business of schooling.

Compulsory education implies obligations both on the side of the pupil and on the side of the community. It would manifestly be inequitable to compel children to go to school if the community failed to provide suitable, safe, and sanitary buildings. Because local wisdom in such matters is often limited, and local judgment biased by considerations of expense, the state has dealt with the matter both through general legislation and through vigorous inspection.

In like fashion it would evidently be indefensible to require pupils to go to school and use inferior textbooks or be instructed by unqualified teachers. Here again the larger community has found it necessary to take a hand. State adoption of textbooks is not uncommon, and state certification of teachers is becoming universal.

More important, perhaps, than anything else is the choice of the subject-matter of instruction. To the ordinary man, as indicated in an earlier chapter, subject-matter seems to choose itself; but it does not. Nor can the local community be expected to know the larger needs of its children. A very striking example of this is furnished by the fact that the federal government has recently set aside vast sums of money for the purpose of subsidizing and directing agricultural and industrial education. The theory back of this action is that even the states, and more certainly cities and towns, are unable to deal with the problems of adequate training for practical life. The largest unit, namely, the whole country, is so much concerned with the efficiency of its citizens in industrial matters that it has undertaken to subsidize and supervise this phase of education.

Such examples make clear the principle under which state laws define the minimum course of study and under which state departments of education are erected to supervise the administration of the course of study. They make clear also the justification for the statement that the control of education ought to be increasingly centralized.