Axton High School - Axtonian Yearbook (Axton, VA)

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THE AXTONIAN qualified teachers, to meet the great need for better instruction, higher pay must be given all teachers. Furthermore, qualified teachers cannot instruct pupils effectively unless they have more and better equipment. As an example of what the best equipment can do, the army and navy have reduced to six months some courses which in our public schools or colleges require one full year of work. Our educators understand the reason for the difference. Dr. Dabney Lancaster, our State Superintendent of Education, has said : The armed forces have all the teaching aids needed: maps, charts, diagrams, pictures, equipment, regardless of cost. Give public schools the same facilities, the same skilled teachers, and the results will follow. 4 In order to secure better teaching equipment, our State Board of Education is backing a program for the postwar consolidation of high schools; that is, the six hundred recog- nized high schools may be consolidated into two hundred, “so that better academic, tech- nical, and vocational courses can be offered.” 5 The cost of this program cannot be borne by the state alone; the local communities must do their part. There are many counties whose support of education does not correspond with their ability. Our county of Henry, I am confident, will not fall into this list but will carry out her part well in putting over an ef- ficient postwar educational program. The federal government will also expand educational opportunities at the youth level after the war, but not along the same lines perhaps as the N.Y.A. and C.C.C. Camps of the depression. There are, for example, the postwar vo- cational schools to serve rural communities as proposed by the George Dondero Bill. Presi- dent Roosevelt’s statement, made before a White House Conference on rural education, that “the federal government must provide aid to schools where needed” 6 is another evi- dence of the federal recognition of educational needs. Adult education will also be given more attention in the already established vocational schools. After the war we shall see an advance in the conception of education, not only in the schools but in non-school agencies also. Greater emphasis will be placed on the home, the church, clubs, recreation centers, travel and other types of personal contacts as educational features. In the postwar years education for democracy will receive greater emphasis. Democ- racy is measured by the number of true leaders and one of the ways to produce these is to seek out the talents of our young people and develop these for true leadership in our gov- ernment. How to train young people to be better leaders is an important problem. The Dean of Columbia University says: Training does not mean turning out bright young men who have been taught pat answers. It means developing in scores of thousands of men the talent for bringing intelligence to bear on our national needs. 7 If young people are to have the ability to solve our nations’ problems, the curriculum must be enlarged to include more basic things. First in everyone’s life is health. A healthy body and mind is needed by everyone to enable him to be a happy and useful citizen. If the larger number of people is to benefit by health education, it must be included in the schools for both veterans and school chil- dren. Veterans must have psychiatric as well as medical care to enable them to overcome their war experiences. School children must become more health conscious. Lois Benedict, Director of the Children’s Bureau of Virginia’s Welfare Department, says that children committed as delinquents are not in good physical health ; only 4.8 per cent need no medi- cal attention. 8 There is no doubt but that children in general need more physical care both in school and out. More people can be reached through the schools by physical education programs and clinics. Physical education instructors and school nurses must be provided for in every public school. The responsibility must not rest on the class room teachers alone. Page Thirty-one

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THE AXTONIAN Postwar Education 0 say the farewell words of the Class of ’45 to our many friends is a great honor and I appreciate it. But you will no doubt think I am brave when I ask your attention, for a little while, to the topic I want you to think about with me : Postwar Education. We, the graduates tonight, have worked patiently to obtain the best education our school can offer. However, I have been thinking of the many who have not had the opportunities that we have had, either because of the war, or for many other reasons. I have also been wondering if the education we have is the kind that will be needed by the majority of the young citizens in the postwar world. When we look into the war situation, we find that about 10,000,000 of our United States service men have less education than we who appear on this platform tonight 1 . We have heard much about the provision for the help of the 5,000,000 service men whose education puts them on the college level, but little has been said of the 10,000,000 below that level. So many of these men are returning to communities like Axton. Do we have what they need? We must turn to the service men for the answer. One ex-marine, who has already returned to high school ranks, says: Education, as we ex-fighters see it, should serve two purposes. It should prepare us to earn a living, and prepare us for God-fearing citizenship Many returning veterans will want and need intensive courses in practical trades. Arrangement for these courses should be made now, before the boys start pouring home in big numbers. Courses of six weeks to six months dura- tion in such trades as welding, farming, carpentering, machine shop work, clerk- ing in stores, even landscaping and barbering should be offered. Then our men can fit into peacetime industry quickly, leaving Longfellow and Shakespeare electives for those who want them 2 . While we agree with the young man that opportunity for vocational education should be included in the school curriculums, we do not think that the cultural side should be neglected. Both should be developed in the individual for true enjoyment of life. Coincident with the ex-fighters’ postwar education, we must take under consideration that of those cast adrift from the demobilization of war workers. So many of them have left school to become independent workers, and after the war, when their services are no longer needed, they will find themselves unprepared for other jobs. Unless something is done by social organizations to educate these younger workers, the high level of juvenile delinquency will increase. In regard to war workers, we will not only need to consider youth, but also adults who are unprepared to fill other jobs. These must be retrained for other useful work so that we will not have a great number of unemployed during the first postwar years. To carry out an adequate system of education for all, a heavy responsibility falls on our present educational system and social organizations. Our State Department of Edu- cation in Virginia has expressed full realization of this fact. However, if a postwar pro- gram is to be a success, local communities must wake up to the situation and make a survey of the needs and the possibilities of meeting them. The G.I. Bill of Rights makes available money to returning veterans to take advantage of educational opportunities, but the individual veteran can use this aid only “if he can find facilities to meet his needs.” 3 One drawback to educational expansion for the duration is the teacher shortage, caused by the drafting of so many men and the attracting of women into full-time jobs at better salaries. This problem will, in part, solve itself in the postwar period when war workers return to their before-war jobs. However, to enable schools to attract the best Page Thirty

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THE AXTONIAN In connection with health, recreation must be considered also. The school should become the community recreational center to which young people could come at speci- fied times and learn to mix and mingle. Another important thing which must be a part of all school curriculums in the post- war world is technology or industrial science. The changes brought about by aviation, radio, cable, and other technological inventions, from the standpoint of community rela- tionship, makes our world no larger, perhaps, than the Thirteen Colonies at the time this republic was founded. Our veterans, no doubt, realize this more than we on the home front. “With the modern methods of warfare, a despot could rule the world as easily as a small state in the eighteenth century.” 9 To really be a good citizen, youth must be given a greater vision of our American fore- fathers and the future of our America. Democracy must be translated into the work and life of our schools. The American ideals of the dignity of the individual, the brotherhood of man. and the equality of races must be grasped by all Americans. To make this pos- sible, there is no better way than to teach in our schools the great laws of human behavior as found in the Bible. In teaching these, non-sectarian principles must be followed ; the re- sults, if these are taught rightly, will be a realization, by the citizens of tomorrow, of the way one should treat his fellow men. The golden rule is the basic principle for a world peace. Americans must also grasp a conception of the world at large — a world that has be- come a community in which all nations must learn to live together. Isolation is no longer possible in this modern world. Fellow classmates, we must get this grand conception of the world if we have not al- ready grasped it, in order to help rebuild this war torn world. As we bid you, our friends, farewell, we want to ask your help in working with us, and the graduates to come, in bearing the heavy responsibilities that will be ours in the postwar world. Farewell. 0 Gladys Talbert, Valedictorian 1. Virginia Journal of Education, (February, 1945), p. 229 2. Reader’s Digest, (February, 1945), p. 321 3. Virginia Journal of Education, loc. cit. 4. Ibid., p. 246 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., p. 244 7. Mother’s Home Life, (February, 1945), p. 2 8. The University of Virginia Neivs Letter, (February 15, 1945) 9. C. S. Counts, Education in Postwar World The World Order, ed. by F. E. Johnson, (Harper, 1944), p. 133 Page Thirty-two