Thompson, W: State and Education

Excerpt from The State and Education: Annual Address at the Commencement Exercises of the Ohio State University

Most of us will recall that in the early days people expressed the belief that education in the public schools should be con fined to the elementary work. We remember equally well that no one was able to define an The Extent to Which elementary education. We are quite sure that the State Shall En the kindergarten, the manual training now so gage in the Work common in many of our cities and much else of Education. Now taught was not then thought of. About all we can be sure of is that people believed in such an education as fairly well met the conditions under which the people were living. With the new development in modern life and industry all have come to see that if education is what it ought to be it will prepare for life. But life in all its surroundings and in many of its problems has greatly changed. As a result educators are doing what they have always done and always will do-they are trying to make the years of early education a preparation for a larger, fuller and-richer life. Under this conception the subjects taught in the elementary and secondary or high schools have multiplied and indeed have been greatly modified. The enlarge ment of the field of education which has brought to the doors of all our people an opportunity in many respects better than was offered by most colleges fifty years ago has been a great move ment in the interest of the people in which there has been a gen eral acquiescence. It would be a hopeless task now to undertake to turn the thought of the people away from this system.

In the sphere of higher education the problem has been more sharply debated. There have been those who stoutly opposed any higher education at public expense and of course the higher the education the more strenuous the objection. In general this objection has been overruled on the ground that the higher edu cation was necessarily expensive and no one was so well able to bear the burden of expense as the whole people. With the advent of the modern curriculum the argument has been greatly strength ened. The introduction of the modern principle of electives in education has not only increased the expensiveness of a college or university but has added to the argument that the state shouldengage in the work. It has become manifest also in the past generation that the progress of civilization has made higher edu cation quite as necessary as the elementary. As a matter of fact and proof there never were so many people pursuing higher edu cation as now. In primitive society with its simpler life higher education was a luxury but with the greater complexity of mod ern life many luxuries have become our every day necessities and higher education is one of them.

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