PALMER, ALASKA DOROTHY M. BELL, Editor , |
PublDshieor. every Friday at Falmer, Alaska, for the Matonuska Val? y
FarmersCooperating Association for the purpose of giving news of the
Association's work, problems, nnh accomplishments.__ __ _
SUBSCRIPTION BY MIL $1.75 _BOX #1.00 _ _ _ SINGLE CO. Y^ 10j^
WHY AH EDUCATION
According to the Census figures of 1940 the total number attending
school in that year between the ages of 5 to 24 was 57.7$ of the total
population. The. number between the ages of 10-13 years attending school
was 95.5 $. At this age we normally expect that all children should be
in attendance. The number attending between the ages of 21 to 24 was
5;1 $ wMch shows the approximate' percentage of those attending college.
In 1940 more than half of the persons 25 years or more old in the
United States had completed eight years of school. The percent who had
never completed even one year of formal schooling was 3.7$. The per
cent who had finished Coliege was 4.6.' %• Among the race-nativity groups,
native whites rank highest, foreign born second, and .negroes lowest, in
educational attainment. The average e-ducatlonnl age of women Is slight
ly higher than that for men, but the proportion of College graduates
i.s higher for men than for women. 5.3$ of all classes white, foreign
born, and negro had less than 4 years cf schooling. Only 41.5$ had
from 4 to 8 years of schooling, 19.6$ had High School and 12.3$ had one
year or more"of College. Statistics get tiresome, but they do tell us
a pretty accurate story. With the Compulsory Education Laws that w<~
have over the nation, the pre-war oversupply of. teachers, one wonders
why such a low educational attainment record In a nation so well eq *p
pe' educationally. Part of the difficulty lies In the South amony T e
r\r rq population which in all probability Is not the fault cf the n tjro,
Fcr>t -of the trouble is caused by carelessness in enforcement of School
attendance laws. Some of our foreign-born came here from countries
where educational standards have been lower than ours. However, most
of the European countries put us to shame in educational attainment.
Many of them have no illiteracy whatsoever.
Child Labor has been responsible for much of our poor school attend
ance. Until the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, there wasn’t much
that could b.e. done to prohibit Child Labor except to enforce school . .
laws.
mere .wps a time in tne fiistory oi tne uniter states tnat tne enuca
tion of the mas&es was considered foolish. Common people were not •
credited ns having .'enough brains to be .worth educating. It was most
certainly foolish to send girls to school for they had no brains at all.
If Horace Mann and others like him had not worked so hard for free pub
lic education, how many of us today could afford an education. In our
own school it costs approximately $225.00 per year per pupil. How could
large families ever attain an education unless they were wealthy! How
many of us fail to take advantage of our opportunities to the fullest
extent? High wages have a strong appeal to boys and girls in their. ..
teens at the present time. Common labor and skilled labor ore better
paid at the present than many professions. A cook can draw much better
wages than a teacher. Mere kids draw wages that put a stenographer's
salary to shame. The only argument that we have to offer is that such
conditions will not last. Eventually when the war is over and things
return to normal, common labor will cease to be at a premium and th' re
will be pie nty adults to fill those positions. Machinery will rep?ace
much hand labor as it has done before. Then where will the young ma"
or young woman be who has left school too early? That will be the
timefwhen an education will be valuable, but now is the time to get it.
. Editor