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Show I THE OGDEN SCHOOLS AGAIN A prominent citisen of Ogden called at the Standard office last evening and said, ' Now that the superintendent superintend-ent of schools has finally presented i detailed Btatement of what he dn-slrea dn-slrea to do with the Ogden school ! ystem, would it not be wise to have those who are opposed to the superintendent's super-intendent's plan to likewise reduce lo writing what Is wanted." Now, this is an excellent proposition. proposi-tion. The Standard Is not authorized to speak for the parents of this city. We agree, however, with I)r Wldstoe, president of the Agricultural college, v.-Inn he told Superintendent .Mills j end the Ogden Board of Kducation at Wednesday c renins' banquet, t hat It w.ns the duty of 'he school author! ties to carry out the wishes of the! people of Ogden. that the schools belong to the people and that the ' Board of Education and the superintend! superin-tend! nt were simply servants of the people. ! The Standard simply takes the stand thai the parents of the children and the people who pay the bills of the Ogden city schools have B right to he heard on any change contem- j plated and that their wishes jj the matter should not only be given .1 fair and respectful hearing by tile j authorities, but. if the plans proposed bj the parents and patrons ot the schools are fair and reasonable, they should be adopted In preference to j any plan proposed by the superintend ent ot school authorities j Of course the Standard has ideas j of its own In regard to the present controversy between the parents of I this city and Superintendent Mills. Su-1 1 perintehdent .Mills' typewritten st.it' J nu m. which v. t.s -nt to the educat-j I ore and is printed in this paper today, provides that all the children from I 1 the kindergarten up to the fourth I grade, and including the fourth grade. j shall have a half-day school and that' the parents shall take care of the children for the other half day. Now,! the Standard is opposed to that prop-' onition because that would place the j children from six years up to ten and eleven w.irs I'll tin streets ol Ogden for half a day during the entire school I period A boy from eight to eleven rears old Is very apt to get into mis I chief in having so much time to run around town To say as ono of the urrat ediie.Tfors said Wednesday night, "that the streets of Ogden art-good art-good enough for the boy unless there is something wrong with the streets of Ogden." is too far-fetched for the standard We know that a mother with an Infant In her arms and one or two children under six years of age has all she can attend to without trying to watch boys from six to eleven yean old half the day, and we know the mother cannot keep thosn boys at home after dinner during the school months. We know thaL re-pardless re-pardless of what the mothers and fn-thers fn-thers do, boys of that age will find their way to the river banks for a swim, or get into some other form of mischief. We know boys soon learn to congregate at barns and acquire the cigarette habit. We know the best of boys will soon get into the company of wayward boys and the result re-sult must be awful. Kor that reason, we are opposed to the parents being asked to take care of the children for the full afternoons during the school period. If it is true, as Superintendent Super-intendent Mills says, that the long hours of a full day would be a strain detrimental to the physical and intellectual in-tellectual strength of the child, then the Standard proposes thai the children, chil-dren, from six to eight years old, be given half-day intellectual training and half-day physical development and nature study; that the children be given two 46-mlnute periods in the morning and an hour of nature study outside; that the same hours be duplicated in the afternoon, with physical exercises In the parks or in the mountains, or canyons under the leadership and direction of responsible responsi-ble teachers, that the same plan be carried out for the children between the ages of eight and eleven years, while giving them a little more in tellectual training and keeping up the physical development of the body with lessons in swimming and agr! j culture. For those over ten and eleven elev-en years ol age. Mr. Mills' plan Id to give those up to fourteen years of age "physical nnd industrial training train-ing for half a da " The Standard favors eliminating the Industrial part for the children from ten or eleven to fourteen years and substituting for the half-day the same methods as proposed pro-posed for the smaller children, only that the physical development and nature na-ture studies be of a more advanced order, and that a complete vocational vocation-al course be prepared and put in force for the high school This in brief, is the Standard's Idea. We have not the least idea whether this will meet with the parents' par-ents' approval, but we think it will, be more acceptable than the plans of Superintendent Mills. We understand that there Is a club now being formed which will take up all these questions, not with a view to creating personal and bitter feel ings. but ha!ng In sluht ihn perfecting perfect-ing of our 6chool system. The Standard would have no ob jcctlotis to adopting Superintendent Mills' plan so far as the Sub high school is concerned and adding industrial in-dustrial training. sa. from one-half hour to an hour and a half a day, but not a half-day In that line The Sub high school children could well give one hour a clay in being taught the use of the saw, hammer and other tools in order to prepare them for the vocational training they are to ri reive In the High school, but W( hi llevc that the Bub-high, which is only the seventh and eighth grades, should be used to complete the fundamental studies of English Including writing spelling and arithmetic. Read Superintendent Mills' plan published today. 00 |