Sec. 2.  THE SCHOOL TEACHING PARENTS

The school may help the home if arrangements are made for parents to meet regularly and receive instruction in those forms of moral training which can best be given at home.  This is one method of solving the vexed question of sex instruction.  Many hesitate as to the wisdom of such instruction in schools; but no one doubts that it ought to be and could be given in families but for the fact that parents are both ignorant of what to tell and indifferent to the matter.  It may be that some day the state will not only say that the child must go to school, but also that every parent intrusted with children must either prove ability to train and instruct in these and other matters or go to school to obtain the necessary training.  The state would not go beyond its province if it required ignorant parents—­and that means most of us in matters of moral training—­to go to school and learn our business.  And without waiting for such compulsion the school may now offer opportunity for all parents to obtain the desired information.  Teachers are especially trained to an understanding of child-nature and to methods of pedagogy; they are prepared to teach many things we ought to know; why should not the family obtain the advantage of such expert knowledge?

The school would also be within its province if it undertook to stimulate the indifferent parents, both rich and poor, to an appreciation of the educational task and opportunity of the home.  Each institution greatly needs the other.  The school reaches all the children of all the people; might it not be made a larger means of helping all the parents of all the children to quickened moral responsibility and to greater educational efficiency?

Sec. 3.  CONTROLLING SCHOOL CONDITIONS

The family ought to know the conditions at the school outside the recitation or working hours.  Few parents have any conception of the power of the playground over moral character.  Perhaps a smaller number realize how dangerous are some of the elements at work there.  Play of itself is immensely valuable, but play means playfellows, and some of these are simply purveyors of indecency and moral contagion in conversation and act.  We are required to send our children to school; we have a right to demand freedom from moral contagion.  Do you know what goes on in secret places on the grounds?  Do you know that the vilest ideas and phrases are current in pictures, cards, on scraps of paper, and in handwriting on walls, not only in the high schools, but often among children of from six to twelve years of age?  This is too large a subject to be developed properly here.  It is one familiar to all wide-awake school men and women and ought to be equally so to the parents of children.  Where the school combats this evil the home should intelligently aid; where the school is indifferent the family dare not rest until either the indifference is quite dispelled or the indifferent dismissed.