File:Street-land; its little people and big problems (1915) (14781791595).jpg

Identifier: streetlanditslit00davi (find matches)
Title: Street-land; its little people and big problems
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Davis, Philip, 1898-
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, Small, Maynard
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
cation in the matter almostperfect. 96 STREET-LAND Truancy is a by-product of compulsory edu-cation laws. The theory of our Americandemocracy necessarily implies intelligent citi-zenship. The greatest instrument for raisingthe general level of intelligence is the publicschool. Hence our ideal of universal educa-tion. After God carried us to New England,reads the famous Harvard tablet, and afterwe had builded our houses, provided necessar-ies for our livelihood, reared convenient placesfor Gods worship and settled the civil govern-ment, one of the next things we longed for andlooked after was to advance learning and per-petuate it to posterity. This desire had its concrete expression in alaw passed as early as 1642, which put a banon barbarism and ignorance. Forasmuch asthe good education of children is of singularbehoof and benefit to any commonwealth, andwhereas many parents and masters are too in-dulgent and negligent of their duty in thiskind, the selectmen were ordered by the Gen-
Text Appearing After Image:
V o a a .2 I I O i 3 - -a H C o O pq SCHOOL DESERTERS 97 eral Court to have a vigilant eye over theirbrethren and neighbors to see that none ofthem shall suffer so much barbarism in any oftheir families as not to endeavor to teach, bythemselves or others, their children and ap-prentices so much learning as may enable themperfectly to read the English tongue, andknowledge of the capital laws; upon penalty oftwenty shillings for every neglected child. Neither Massachusetts, with her two hun-dred and fifty years experience in compulsoryeducation, nor any other State, however pro-gressive, has yet evolved a successful plan forcombating truancy. Before this can be ac-complished we must learn the reasons why chil-dren leave school. Fifty years ago, Massachusetts educatorsbegan to look for causes. Early investigatorsregarded truancy as a phase of human de-pravity. They called it juvenile depravity.Playing truant was considered a crime. In1846, when truancy first loomed up as a pr

Note About Images