4. School prepares for a Lifetime of Usefulness. In their eagerness to make themselves count while they are still young, however, students should not for an instant forget that in America schooldays are intended also to prepare them for a long stretch of useful years that will end only with their death.

It is hopelessly old-fashioned to divide one's life into three parts-youth, manhood or womanhood, old age-and call youth the period of preparation, manhood and womanhood the period of accomplishment, and old age the years of rest and comfortable idleness.

Idleness is always wrong and no red-blooded American wants a long period of rest. He wants only periods of service and accomplishment. Therefore if a young man is planning to be a successful civil engineer at twenty-five, he is also planning

to be the best engineer in his part of the country at sixty. And his hope is that when disease or accident finally comes he will. be in the midst of his best achievement. There is no better illustration of such a worker than Michelangelo, who, when he was eighty, though feeble and bent, worked tirelessly by day as architect of St. Peter's at Rome and at night, by the flaring light of a candle, carved out of marble a last message to the world. His hand was no longer steady, and when finally a blow went too deep he stopped in weariness and discouragement. The great picture in marble was never completed, but already he had made something that would not be forgotten. It now stands behind the high altar in the great Duomo of Florence-a group showing the body of the crucified Christ being lowered from the

Keystone View Co.

cross by Joseph of Arimathea into the arms of his mother and Mary Magdalene. Though the face of the mother is seen only dimly in the uncut marble, it is inexpressibly beautiful. When somebody asked Saint Gaudens why he worked all day and every day, regardless of inspiration, his reply was, "If I do, and inspiration comes at any time, I am sure of its finding me at home." And not until his final illness seized him did he lay aside his tools.

5. Much of the Important Work is done by the Aged. There have been men of genius and ability in every country who in their old age gave the world some of their best work.

Benjamin Franklin at eighty-one, although he had been in public life more than fifty years, served as one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. In more recent years we have had men like Lyman Abbott, author and preacher, who, at eighty-six, was a regular contributor to a weekly newspaper, and Thomas A. Edison, who, at seventy-four, worked at his inventions in his laboratory twelve hours a day. The railroad that extends down the east coast of Florida to St. Augustine, and from that city six hundred miles along the Florida Keys-once impassable swamp land and tidewater areas-to Key West, was the work of a man past middle age, who, as one of his friends said, would long since have retired to enjoy the fruits of his labor if he had been a man of any other nationality.

6. America provides Many Different Kinds of Schools. It is to help make pupils useful as long as they live that America has an elaborate system of schools. This is why each year there are new kinds of schools, new courses of study in old schools, and more money voted for equipment. Every state now has a compulsory school-attendance law. In five states attendance is required until eighteen years of age, in three states until seventeen, in thirty-two until sixteen, one until fifteen, and six until fourteen. There is no state which does not have many high schools, one or more normal schools and colleges, and many states have free correspondence courses conducted by the state board of education. Then there are evening university-extension courses and special Americanization classes for those who work during the day. California was the first state to send teachers into the homes of foreigners, but similar home teaching for immigrant mothers is now done in several states. New York City was one of the first communities to open a summer high school.

An illustration of the great variety of schools to be found in our cities is furnished by Kansas City, which recently had

5 high schools
2 trade schools
I dental college
6 private schools

3 aviation schools

87 elementary schools

I teachers' training school
I law school

I medical school

32 parochial schools
3 tractor schools
I junior college
10 business colleges

I optical school

3 automobile schools

2 nurses' training schools

In addition to these there were many other classes and special trade schools. In a recent year New York City, in addition to the regular public-school classes, had the following special schools and classes:

IOI classes of cripple children

115 classes of pretuberculous children.

26 classes of tuberculous children

34 classes of children who are blind or have defective sight

34 classes of deaf children

18 cardiopathic classes

257 classes of mental defectives

3 truant schools housing four hundred boys

3 probationary schools housing five hundred boys

In the past Americans have too much neglected their handicapped young people, but now they are beginning to understand that even the sightless and those hopelessly crippled need to have some kind of school training. One of the things awaiting the young people now in school is to find ways of educating all the handicapped. There are today many thousands of blind and crippled young people who have no school opportunities of any kind.

7. The Course of Study changed to meet Changing Needs of Work Life and Home Life. In spite of the large number of free schools, many pupils leave school the moment they reach the legal age limit and never again turn to their studies. For this reason the courses of study of the elementary schools have had

to be planned with the greatest of care. Whenever a new subject is added or when fewer hours per term are given to one subject and more hours to another, it is because a group of planners, looking into the future, have seen new opportunities and new difficulties awaiting the young people in their work life and home life and have tried to make the school prepare them to meet changing conditions. It is the same with the

schools as with the laws passed by Congress and the state legislatures. They must be made to fit the needs of a rapidly growing and rapidly changing nation.

The increasing cost of food has resulted in the teaching of elementary agriculture in rural schools, cooking and marketing in town and city schools, and the principles of thrift in all schools. The fact that each year more families must live in crowded apartments and tenements has caused boards of education to lay more emphasis on hygiene and sanitation. Because fewer children each year have yards in which to play, the schools require the teaching of gymnastics and games to give needed exercise.