derstanding of child-nature and to methods of pedagogy; they are
prepared to teach many things we ought to know; why should not the
family obtain the advantage of such expert knowledge?

The school would also be within its province if it undertook to
stimulate the indifferent parents, both rich and poor, to an
appreciation of the educational task and opportunity of the home. Each
institution greatly needs the other. The school reaches all the children
of all the people; might it not be made a larger means of helping all
the parents of all the children to quickened moral responsibility and to
greater educational efficiency?

Sec. 3. CONTROLLING SCHOOL CONDITIONS

The family ought to know the conditions at the school outside the
recitation or working hours. Few parents have any conception of the
power of the playground over moral character. Perhaps a smaller number
realize how dangerous are some of the elements at work there. Play of
itself is immensely valuable, but play means playfellows, and some of
these are simply purveyors of indecency and moral contagion in
conversation and act. We are required to send our children to school; we
have a right to demand freedom from moral contagion. Do you know what
goes on in secret places on the grounds? Do you know that the vilest
ideas and phrases are current in pictures, cards, on scraps of paper,
and in handwriting on walls, not only in the high schools, but often
among children of from six to twelve years of age? This is too large a
subject to be developed properly here. It is one familiar to all
wide-awake school men and women and ought to be equally so to the
parents of children. Where the school combats this evil the home should
intelligently aid; where the school is indifferent the family dare not
rest until either the indifference is quite dispelled or the indifferent
dismissed.

Do not expect to get the facts concerning these suggested conditions by
inquiry among your children. They are reticent, naturally, on such
matters when talking with adults; besides, the sense of school honor
holds them to silence. If they tell you voluntarily, you are happy in
their free confidence. Do not betray it; simply let it lead you to make
further inquiry at the school from the authorities and stimulate you to
insist that, for the sake of the spiritual good of the young, the school
must furnish conditions of moral health.

I. References for Study

Ella Lyman Cabot, _V