CHAPTER X THE EDUCATIONAL AND RESEARCH It is obviously beyond the scope of this writing to undertake discussion of the development of general education in California either from historical or pedagogical points of view. Those desiring to view the subject from these angles will find both facts and philosophy in the ample literature of the subject.1 General characterization of the spirit and achievements of the California public school system, which extends from the most remote district school, through an ascending series of primary, grammar and highschools to the University of California and which has also side-lines through a full complement of normal and technical schools and institutions for those either physically or mentally deficient, all under the superintendence of the State and directly supported by it, will be enough to assure the reader that California has from the beginning as an American state occupied a leading place in provisions for public instruction. 1 Reports of the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Sacramento: of the Commissioner of Education. U. S. Department of the Interior, Washington of the National Educational Association, etc. Current events and discussions are presented in two educational journals: The Western Journal of Education and the Sierra Educational News, both published in San Francisco. The first public school in California was opened in San Francisco on April 3, 1848, in advance of the gold discovery, when the city had a population of 850. An early writer naïvely declares that it "would have been opened sooner if the population had not been to so large an extent already grown up." The constitution on which California was admitted to the Union in 1850 provided for a system of common schools to be supported in all districts of the State. Immediately also private schools and colleges were established by the missionaries which many religious denominations sent to guard the spiritual welfare of the gold-seekers. Thus, from the very beginning, the educational outfit of the State was developed not to meet a crying need of a juvenile population but anticipatory of it. This was fortunate because it enabled the pioneer educators to proceed more leisurely toward the realization of a system of public instruction which included many improvements on methods and policies prevailing in older states. During several decades this condition continued in California and afforded educational reformers an excellent opportunity for progressive work. More recently, however, with the swift gain in population, the demand for instruction has increased to such an extent that though outfitted for public instruction of all grades, from primary schools to the University, on most democratic plans and although public expenditure has been most liberal (over fifty millions a year), California is finding it difficult to meet the demand for educational facilities although the equipment is rela tively greater than in more populous states. The population having more than doubled in the last twenty years (Chapter IV), the popular demand for vocational training having been met as far as possible and the compulsory requirement that all youth shall attend schools until sixteen years of age are among the fundamental facts which constitute a demonstration that California must make new provisions of equipment and expenditure to justify and maintain her old standards of State policy in public instruction. What these standards have been in the past and especially the relations to rural life of the chief characteristics of the public school system are picturesquely outlined by the late Edward Hyatt, Superintendent of Public Instruction 1907 to 1919, as follows: "The most striking characteristic of California schools, perhaps, lies in the provision and care of the children in the remote rural regions. No mountain top is too inaccessible to have its school; no plain too distant; no sage brush desert too far removed. Where half a dozen children dwell there you will find a district school. And mark this: this remote school, so far away, so small, so weak has a standard school house, a standard teacher, a standard equipment and a standard length of term. There will be eight or nine months of school in a year. The teacher will have the same education and the same certification as in the proudest city. The books, apparatus and other educational appliances will be of the same character as in the populous cities. It is the idea of a generous state that one child is as good as another, no matter where he happens to dwell. The expense of all this does not fall upon the parents of the children or upon the residents or property owners of the local district. It is provided by the general tax upon state and county property. "In towns, villages and well-settled fruit and farming regions . . . beautiful school houses dot the landscape everywhere. High schools, normal schools and other higher institutions abound. One of the strikingly original features of the California school system is its plan of furnishing text books to the children. It is the only state in the Union which manufactures its school books in a state printing office and distributes them free to the pupils." Having reached such attainments in a state system for general education in elementary and secondary branches of learning, California during the last two decades introduced into school work practically all the connecting links between academic studies and industries which were held to impart useful knowledge to the pupil and to promote his sympathetic interest in the character and opportunities of his environment. However, none of these seemed to reach ultimate desirability as conceived by parents and by progressive teachers. This conviction led. to the reorganization of school initiative and control by providing in 1913 a State Board of Education consisting of citizens who are not of the pedagogical profession and empowered them to appoint experts to study questions of education from the point of view of popular conceptions of desirability and of pedagogical practicability. This State Board of Education appointed three Commissioners of Education to superintend and revise elementary, secondary and vocational instruction; four State Supervisors to deal with instruction in physical culture, agriculture, home economics and vocational war work. All these agencies were supplementary to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, an elective officer existing from the beginning of the State government. Every session of the legislature has much to do with the re-fitting and extension of the school law and tries to keep pace with the progressive development of the school system in the public and the pedagogical mind. The system has become very extensive as the statistics in the Appendix will sufficiently indicate. The work of the State Board and of its expert commissioners resulted in great progress toward an ultimate attainment in courses of study and equipment and ability in the use of them, which shall satisfy the public mind as to what the schools should do to fit youth for practical life. There is at least a wide conviction that the schools are moving forward in the right direction. The new point of view and direction of effort are indicated by the following declaration by the Board of Education in its report of 1918: "The most distinctive movement in education not only in California but throughout the United States, wherever the problems of elementary and high school |