Lecture on Education

Professor Hanus gave the first of the series of Lectures on Education last night on "The Mutual Responsibility of the Home and the School." He said in part:

The school cannot be wholly responsible for the education of our children. The individual home and the community are jointly responsible with the school for the education of every child. Nevertheless, the school must carry the largest share of this responsibility, because it is the institution which society charges with the sole function of education, while the home and other institutions of society have many other functions. It is therefore the business of the school to cast the more or less vague desires of the community respecting education into definite aims, and to find, organize and administer the means through which these aims are to be carried out. But, in order that the school may really fulfil the function for which it is established, it must have the active co-operation of the individual home and of the community. Unless the work of the school is re-enforced by home support, the efforts of the teachers will not meet with an appropriate response from the pupils. The teacher may work as hard as he can but he cannot rely on a corresponding effort on the part of the pupil if the pupil's parents are indifferent or possibly even averse to the aims and work of the school.

Furthermore unless the school has the adequate financial support of the community, it can do nothing well; it cannot provide suitable buildings and equipment; it cannot secure and retain teachers who possess scholarship, cultivation, and teaching power commensurate with the work they have to do; it cannot provide the skilled supervision needed to maintain the school buildings and their equipment in a satisfactory condition, and the teaching force at a high level of efficiency.

Now, the individual home and the community will not give moral or financial aid to the school--will not co-operate with the school unless they believe in it. Hence the necessity for conference between the homes and the school that the school may know and clearly understand the desires of the home in other than merely formal ways, and that the home may similarly understand and appreciate the difficulties and the efficacy of the school, as well as its short comings; and in order that each may recognize its own share of responsibility for the results actually achieved.

There are three devices for promoting a good mutual understanding between the home and the school: "Pupil Study," "Parent's Meetings," and "Education Societies." These are as yet more or less imperfect but they are decidedly promising. Through these or similar devices, the individual home and the community will gradually learn that every educational demand puts corresponding educational problems to the school, that these problems can be solved successfully and wisely only by professional teachers working in the school, and not by laymen; and that patience and a willingness to experiment intelligently are indispensible in the wise solution of educational problems;-- and the school in turn will learn that adjustment to the gradually changing and ever expanding educational needs of individuals and of society is the fundamental condition on which the effective co-operation of the community depends.