Report by special Kentucky Educational Association committee charged to draft a Declaration of Principles or a statement of the aims and purposes of the educational forces of the State of Kentucky. The report was adopted unanimously at the annual meeting of KEA.https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/exhibit_2015/1015/thumbnail.jp

Cherry, Henry

Coates, T. J.

Hamlett, Barksdale

Hammack, N. C.

Holland, E. O.

Kentucky Educational Association

Rhoads, McHenry

Risley, J. H.

English

TopSCHOLAR

Western Kentucky UniversityTopSCHOLAR®WKU Archives Records WKU Archives1913UA3/1/4 Declaration of Principles & AimsHenry CherryWestern Kentucky UniversityMcHenry RhoadesE. O. HollandT. J. CoatesJ. H. RisleySee next page for additional authorsFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_recordsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis Other is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in WKU Archives Records by anauthorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact topscholar@wku.edu.Recommended CitationCherry, Henry; Rhoades, McHenry; Holland, E. O.; Coates, T. J.; Risley, J. H.; Hammack, N. C.; Hamlett, Barksdale; and KentuckyEducational Association, "UA3/1/4 Declaration of Principles & Aims" (1913). WKU Archives Records. Paper 3928.http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_records/3928AuthorsHenry Cherry, McHenry Rhoades, E. O. Holland, T. J. Coates, J. H. Risley, N. C. Hammack, BarksdaleHamlett, and Kentucky Educational AssociationThis other is available at TopSCHOLAR®: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_records/3928I 1!ltd aration of fjrintipltti == anll ~imti. == 1913 DEPARTM E NT o Ii" - ED U OATIO::N BARKSDALE IIAM:LETI' 8 UPER.TNTENDlIlNT p unT.IO INS-rRUorrON FRANKFORT , Ky, DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES AND AIMS. Kentucky Educat ional A uocio.tion 1913 ~ RI O R to the Louisville meet ing o f the ...., K entucky Educat ional Associat ion in 1913, the Pres ident appointed a specia l com-mi ttee to d raft a Declaration of P rinciples or a statement of the aims and purposes of the educa tional forces o f the State. This co mmit-tee made the fo llowing repo rt at the mee ting a nd it was unanimously adopted by the fiv e thousand teachers and trustees present. Every member o f the Associatio n is pledged to carry out the pr inc ipl es of this d eclara tion. fir' HE K entucky Educat io nal Associat ion, ~ now holding it s an nua l sess ion in Lou is-v ille, r epresen ting teachers and friends of edu-ca tion in every county in the State, makes the followin g declaratio n of principles and aims: A Great Commonwealth-A great State must have vision, purpose and un ity o f effort. It must have mo ra l, inte llectual and industria l ideals and wo rk to accomplish them. It must be affirmative and fearless. These quali ties depend upon the people co mposing th e State. The School System-The first duty of the Sta te and its first necessity is to provide for tra ining which will guarantee the intell igence and promote the integ ri ty o f its c itizen s. This m ust be accomplished through a harmonized and a rt icula ted school syst c;m, under Govern· 1 ment direction, supported by distr ict, county and State taxation. Our system of schools must include elementary schools, secondary schools, normal schools, and the State Uni-versity. A Great Commonwealth Mus t Be Achieved - Behind every great human achievement is a gr ea t human being ; behind every g reat State are g reat men. A great Commonwealth can not be bestowed, it must be achieved through education. T he school is a fundamental neces-sity to social and indus tr ial efficiency. It will take full-grown Kentuckian s to make a full-grown Kentucky, and it will take a full -grown system of schools exploited to the highest degree of efficiency to make full-g rown Kentuckians. • • • • l'b UMAN and Material Waste-Every idle r, R every unskilled laborer, fa rmer, house-keeper, every unqualified preacher, teacher, docto r, lawyer, and every other incompetent workman in every other human endeavor, re-mind us most forcibly of lost oppor tunity and of spiritual and mater ial waste. Most of our troubles are fundamental; they begin in the individual. Therefore, a lofty, sane and democratic ef-fort in the interest of universal development fundamentally concerns the training of every child in the land for a patriotic and efficient service. The responsibil ity of training the child falls heavily, too heavily, upon the school. America's inherent and un iversal 2 , worker fo r life and freedom. Chi ldhood shows us the way to a greater Commo:n-wealth. The Courses of Study-Democracy demands that every human niche in government, in so-ciety, in commerce, be filled by a citizen who feel s, knows and bears respons ibility, who fills his niche with vis ion, poised character and vi-talized activity, who recognizes ideal demo-cratic life as occupied l ife that has inte ll igence and Christian ballast, wh ether it l ives in hovel o r man sion, possesses a penny or a million, follows the plow, stands at the anvi l, occupies the pulpit, int erprets tlie law o r sits in the counci ls of government. Our Government, founded upon the consent of the governed, demands that our school sys-tem offer efficient training for workers in all of these and all other honorable human en-deavors. We pledge ourselves to support a school policy that recognizes the inalienable educational rights of every child-to a school policy that will vitalize the courses of study and offer each individual an opportunity to prepare for h is chosen work, and for spi ritual and intellectual freedom. The school of tomor-row must be cuIturalized, socialized, industrial-ized, vocat ionized and democratized. It must be a school f·of the people, by the people and for the people," the source of the currents o f Jife-a fountain of democracy. " Education mllst be made vocational to the extent that ninety-eight per cent. of human be-ings in Kentucky, who must live by the work of their hands, shall do so with a maximum of 3 skill and in te lligence, and this involves the r e-adjustment o f an iron and outwo rn curricu-lum in accordance with indiv idual needs. This applies wi th peculiar force to the coun-try schools, which must be made over in con-t ent and m ethod." ,. ,. .. ,. 'ill:HE TEACHER-Th e Slate that has the men has the present; the State that has the schools has th e future, and the State that has th e t eachers has the schools. I nfluence is la rgely inh erent in personality. Behind the g reat school lies the construct ive personality of a great teacher. The school is largely in the spir it o f the teacher. In its last a nalysis, the teacher is the schooL Th e quali fied teacher marches a t the head of educat ional progress. E ven a live, p rogress ive course o f study wi ll die in the hands o f a dead teacher and will br ing disappoin tmen t to th e people and crea te the r eactionary spirit in the school community. Vocational t raining and all other good things that are a natura l part o f t he organic l ife of the school will languish and die unless vitalized by leade rship. It is dangerous for educat ional r eform t o r each th e school ahead o f a trained and re-formed teacher. \Vi thout eng ineers, o ur a t· tempt to build the Panama Canal would have fail ed ; with out t eachers, we shall never ac-complish our educational ideals. Vtle must not a ttempt to dig a Panama Canal without a Goethals, to es tablish wireles s t eleg raphy wit hout a hIarconi, to win a victo ry at Val1 ey 4 Forge without a \¥ ashingto n, to write a drama without a Shakespeare, to teach without a t eacher, a nd to accomplish l ife without life. It is a progress ive statesman ship tha t r eal-izes that whatever is desired in the life o f the State must be d eveloped in the l ife of those teachers who train the children of the State. \ Ve reaffi rm o ur d evotion to the efforts o f the State to train t eachers fo r se rvice in our Com-monwealth. E ducation and P hysical Equipment - \Ve shall fa il to accomplish our educational ideals unless we s ucceed in punt ing at th e door ' o f every child in the land a m odern schoolhouse modern equipment, ample a nd attracth'~ school g rounds, and sanitation . E very availab le dolla r for physical equip-m ent should be invested in a school plan t that will have economy, convenience and harmony. We believe, as a general principle, that it is an unwise policy to invest money in repairing old dilap idated school houses that can never be made into att ract ive a nd s uitable places for the t raining of the children. W e pledg e o urselves, a s fa r as pract icable, to build and equip a few good school-houses, rather than a ttempt to make old ones modern that a re unfit for permanent use. .. .. .... <If! DUCATION and Individuality- The in-t egrity o f ind ividuality and the power of s incere, o rig inal and independent thought must be preserved in the lives o f the people, or we shall experience a gloomy failure in the work · 5 of developing and perpetua t ing the ideals o f a democracy. The highest development or thought, justice and progress in society, d e-pends upon a multiplicity of individual ideas. Battles between ideas and duels between personal iti es are the natural product o f af-firmative and creat ive man and democratic governments. Th e o nly thing that can van-quish an idea ii a superio r idea. There is no higher test of patrioti sm and true reform than the ability to create a superior idea-to be-come a r elen tless foe to a prevailing and ac-cepted inferior idea. Th e man who preserves his individuali ty, who hears and obeys the voice of an educated consc ience and creates and goes behind a g rea t idea is a captain in the army of progress who fi ghts the battles of the flag. The man who does th is is, in its hig hest sense, an ideal American citizen. If we do not believe in the idea he champions, we should light his idea with a greater idea and stop the p revailing, eas ier, more conventional and coward ly way of attacking the individual himself and appeal-ing to the prejudices, the ignorances and the pass ions o f the people in order t o discredit the idea and gain a temporary advantage. The school should be a human nursery whe re ideas grow and where individualit ies fl ouri sh. \ ·Ye look with disfavor upon any tendency to stereo type the school at the cost of orig inality, th e power of in itiative and the sense of responsibi lity in the life of the child. \'Ve stand for a school that will d evelop a reading, thinking, working, serving people 6 , J who act for themselves and challenge the right of any man to do their thinking and vot ing for th em. •• • I'fZ DUCATION and Citizenship--We shall ~ fail to develop and perpetuate the ideals of a democracy un less the schools recognize t he necessity of training our youth for citizenship. The school that is not itse lf aglow with en-thusiasm for refinem ent, beauty, since ri ty, truth, righ teousness, can never kindle in those under its charge this flam e of the highe r pa-triotism. Th e school must vitalize its efforts with hu-man interests and hono r and prac tice noble life in the rec itat ion, in the examination, on the playground and elsewhere. Pat riotism is life; it is a p rinciple, a divine and human fun-damental. The roots of pure undefiled patriotism run deep in th e laws of mind. It is a cha racter forged in the soul. O!d Glory float ing over the school-house will not go far toward the development of civic virtue unless the school carries Old Glo ry in its heart, supports it in its courses of study and defends its sacred honor in its daily conduct. We pledge our best efforts to give every community of K entucky a school that will stand at the life anvil of every ehild and assist in forging a civic fre eman; a school that will accompany the voter to the voting precinct and prompt the hand to cast an honest ballot ; a school that will bring the ballot-box and the people closer together, and .a school that will 7 develop a civic awakening that will brand and publicly disgrace any individual who barters a public trust o r who offers to buy or sell the sacred ballot. Education and Commercialism-Vocational education is concerned with the art of making money and is fundamental. Esthetic training prepares one for the art of spending money, a nd must have a prominent place in the school. v.,re indorse an educat ional policy that will reach the homes of the land, improve produc-tive capacity and make the State rich in ma-terial things, but we would make the motive that prompts the effort a love, a service, a moral enthusiasm that will stamp every dol-Iar with integrity, and give it a conscience that will t ransmute it in to beauty, into esthetic ideals, into freedom, into human efficiency. It would be better fo r us .to die in a hut and preserve and develop ideals of beauty, in teg-rity, and human sympathy than to die ri ch in a mansion and be a commercialized, selfish people. Neither is right. The remedy is in the proper use of our life and property pri\'i-leges. • • • • {Q'DUCATION and Public H ealth-One of ~ the first duties of the State is to protect the life and to promote the heal th of its citizens. Conserving the vitality of the people by stop-ping the pollution of th e streams, by observ-ing sanitary laws in the home, the school, the business enterprise, the city, and elsewhere, will not only cont ribute to the happiness but to the economic productivity of the people. S "There is no iron law of mortality." Aver-age life is increased or decreased by observing or by neglec,ting the physical laws of health and sanitation. Thousands of citizens die from preventable causes. Eleven thousand, eight hundred and forty-one Kentuckians died during 1912 from preventable diseases. The State comes very close home to the in-dividual when it saves him from sickness, and even from death. This it can do, does do, and should cont inue to do in a much larger de-gree. The teachers of K entucky promise a more active interest in securing school and home sanitation in every section of Kentucky, and in supporting the work that is being done by the State for public heal th. Education and Property-The school is a pioneer that reaches the industrial world through the world of mind. The efficient school precedes thinking capacity; thinking capacity precedes earning capacity, and earn-ing capacity precedes industrial progress. Human thought is the ticker that tells what every inch of property is worth. Extend the vision of mind and you broaden th e fields of commerce; bui ld up the efficiency of the sch ool and you quicken industrial life; build and equip a modern school building in every community in Kentucky, adopt courses of study that will prepare for the work of life, and employ teachers who have tthe teacher's vision and the teacher's preparation and Ken-tucky wi ll experience a new moral, intellectual and industrial birth. 9 Live schools, constructive citizens and a sane commerce travel together. The schools assist in solving the fiscal and social prob-lems of the home and of the State by increas-ing the productive capacity of the people, by developing a citizenship whose good behavior will reduce the expense for criminal prosecu-tions and make additions to jails and peniten-tiaries unnecessa ry, by developing a rugged honesty that prompts every citizen and every interest to list property at its proper value, and by making every person a product ive, honest citizen who puts public interest above private ga in. Th e people have not always supported the schools, because th ey regarded them a s a tax. They must be shown that ignorance is a tax, and that the school is an investment that pays two dividends, o ll e in more life and one in more propl.!rty. Any man who attempts to refo rm the fi scal affairs of the local community and of the State by curtailing legitimately, economically and efficiently administe red ma-terial support to education and to a work of making a productive citizen, proceeds on the t heory that the way to meet a deficit and stop a leak is to make the leak larger. He proceeds on the theory that the way to be rescued from a leaking boat is to s ink the boat. He proceeds on the theory that the way to live is to cut off the current of li fe. • • • • /C nUCATION and the Fiscal Problems of ""'" the State-The most pressing problem now befo re the State is the one that relates to its fi scal affairs, to a revision of our system of 10 taxation, to the establ ishment of the business of the State upon sane and democratic princi-ples. The fiscal item is related to every move inaugurated for the improvement of li fe. This makes it one of universal interest. The education of the people is the larges t business item connected with the management of the Commonwealth. The enactment of a measure th at will improve the finances of the State and provides fo r th e punctual payment of her obligations, would be more in the inter-est of education than in the interest of any other one department of State endeavor. Making needed appropriations to the edu-cationa l inst itu tions of the State, to agr icul-tural educat ion, and to all worthy causes, is thoroughly in line with progress and a patri-otic and efficient administration of govern-ment. The responsibili ty of fiscal leadership fa lls heavily upon those men who lhave been chosen by the people to administer the affairs of government. \ Ve pledge act ive support to any efficient and just method that may be advocated that wi ll solve the fi scal probl ems and provide for the punctual payment of the obligations of the State. Indorsements-The Ken tucky Educational Assocation indo rses the following and pledges its suppor t : T o the State-wide movement to improve the rural schools. T o the consolidation of all district schools wherever practicable. 11 T o rural school supervision. To an extension, as soon as practi cable, of the common school term. T o the effort to haye better trained and bet-te r paid teachers. T o a more efficient truancy law. with the necessary machinery for its enforcement, and such provision for children from indigent homes that no excuse can be offered fo r not being in school. T o the abso lute divo rcement of the schools from poli tics. To the teaching of agriculture and home-making in the schools. To a better system of roads in every com-munity in the Commonwealth. To the movement to revise the prescnt sys-tem of taxation. H. H. CHERRY, McHEN RY RHOADES, E. O. HOLLA ND, CO"MITTEE T . J. COATES, J. H . RISLEY, N. C. H AMMACK, BARKSDALE H AMLETT, Superi n tendent of Public Ins t ruction . 12 

Declaration of Principles & Aims

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4929&context=dlsc_ua_records

Declaration of Principles & Aims

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

TopSCHOLAR