offender. Retribution and reformation are to be displaced by prevention. The benefit of parental schools is threefold. They are desirable from the standpoint of the good student, of the unruly and truant child, and of the teacher. Parental schools remove a source of irritation and danger from the good and obedient student; they give positive aid to the other class of students; and, lastly, they relieve the overburdened teacher. Compulsory education can never be a success until day industrial and parental schools are added to the public-school system, or until the ordinary school is more closely fashioned after the parental school. If the school system becomes better prepared to practically aid the child, to take advantage of his experience and desires, the amount of truancy and incorrigibility will decrease, as this is the result of abnormal conditions in school or home, or in both. As education approaches the dignity of a science, as the cumulative effect of better schools and better homes is felt, generation after generation, as our cities and homes are made habitable and healthy, the truant and the "incorrigible" will gradually disappear. The reform school is an institution "necessary for youth who have committed acts which would send an adult to the state penitentiary, as larceny, arson, stabbing." The best reformatories, as for example the Elmira Reformatory, utilize manual training, military drill and regular work. "The occupations should be, as far as possible, agricultural and horticultural, and the educational influences should tend toward a career in the country. Even for rural industry the elements of a trade should be taught. Since many boys from cities are certain to return to their homes, a great variety of trades must be taught to meet their wants."1 The Chicago parental school is probably one of the best of its kind in the world. It is an integral part of the public-school system. This school was opened in 1902. It is located in the northwestern part of the city, on a fifty-acre lot, remote from the crowded portions of the city. The environment is practically rural. The school is organized on the cottage plan; the children are divided into groups of about thirty, and each group is placed in the care of a man and his wife. The attempt is made to reproduce as far as possible real homes and family life in a good environment. "As the home and social conditions of the boys committed to this school are not the best possible, we aim to give them a good home and proper training in manners and morals as well as intellectual culture. To this end we are careful to select, as family officers, men and women of education and refinement, and the remarkable change in the deportment of paroled pupils of this school, noted by teachers and principals, is largely due to the influence of our 'family instructors.'" The report states: "What these boys most need is good diet and hygienic exercise. We emphasize our dietary." Food, environment 1 Henderson, Dependents, Defectives, Delinquents, p. 239. 'First Annual Report of the Chicago Parental School. and physical exercise,-if these three elements act beneficially upon the child, half of his battle of life is won. Only a small percentage of children who are improperly nourished, whose environment is depressing or demoralizing, or who have little. opportunity for healthful physical exercise and work, can hope to rise above the level of their surroundings. We talk much about equality of opportunity in education, but we often overlook the facts in the case. The real value of the parental school lies in placing the child in a good environment, feeding him in a wholesome and simple manner, and providing work and regular exercise for him. The George Junior Republic, about which so much has been written, is in reality a private parental school. The experience of this school adds to the testimony as to the value and necessity of regular occupation and wholesome environmental conditions. In Cook County jail, Chicago, the author once witnessed a most pathetic sight. In an upper room of that grim and forbidding structure some twentyfive or thirty juvenile criminals were being given military drill, light gymnastic exercises and instruction in vocal music. The squad was in charge of the matron of the institution, assisted by two or three inmates. Jailor Whitman remarked, "These boys have no idea of right living." They were criminals because of their environment and lack of proper training. Mr. Whitman firmly believed that this daily drill and exercise, teaching them to act in unison with others and to move with precision, would be of much benefit to these young unfortunates who were temporarily in his charge. What a social waste, because the proper formation of these young minds has been neglected! "The evils of poverty are not barren, but procreative; the workers in poverty are, in spite of themselves, giving to the world a litter of miserables, whose degeneracy is so stubborn and fixed that reclamation is almost impossible, especially when the only process of reclamation must consist in trying to force the pauper, vagrant and weakling back into that struggle with poverty which is all the time defeating stronger and better natures."1 The improvement of the environmental conditions in our cities and villages will conduce to a lower birth rate for those populations who now have an undesirably large one. Misery and a high birth rate are boon companions. The proper enlargement and exercise of the true functions of public education are at the root of the economic and social betterment of modern democratic society. CHAPTER XIV # NEW EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS This chapter is devoted to a discussion of certain recent actual or proposed extensions of the functions of the school-innovations which tend particularly to enlarge its social character. These new functions are typical of the democratizing tendencies in modern education. As yet, they are nearly all in the experimental stage, and have by no means attained the full measure of service which may be expected of them. The active propaganda in favor of the parental school, the continuation school, and the various educational innovations discussed in this chapter marked the opening of the fourth period in our educational history. These educational innovations are clearly semi-socialistic in their nature, and several of them have received the support of a new social power,-the women's organizations. A severe crisis or long-continued trade depression would probably cause the public to direct its attention toward the school and would so crystallize public sentiment that the majority of these additional educational functions would soon become permanently added to the work of the public school, instead of being supported in a half-hearted way or of standing in danger of being discontinued or |