The provisions of this law show how complicated is the social situation with which the community deals in its compulsory laws. The assumption that it is simple to define the necessary schooling for a future citizen is easily refuted by a little consideration.
In the first place, pupils do not go through the elementary schools without interruption; hence the mere specifying of a given age such as fourteen is not enough. Non-promotion, or the removal of the family to another town, or some misfortune such as sickness may delay the pupil so that he reaches the age of fourteen in one of the lower grades. Intelligent legislation is, accordingly, taking this into account. In some states it is required that the child shall finish a certain grade,—usually the sixth,—otherwise he must go to school until he is sixteen. Or, as in South Carolina, he must stay in school until he has acquired the ability to read and write.
In this connection a complication in legislation may be pointed out which is of profound social significance. The definition of adulthood which is given in labor legislation has usually set the age at which a boy may be regularly employed, at sixteen, while the education law of the same state often requires school attendance only up to fourteen. The result is that the youth between fourteen and sixteen has been sadly at sea. He has not had the judgment to stay in school after he was freed by the compulsory-education law, and he has not had the opportunity to enter on regular employment. He has therefore drifted about, working at odd jobs and learning the bad habits of the unproductively employed.
SUPERVISION A NECESSARY COROLLARY TO COMPULSION
Such considerations as these lead to a clear understanding of the reasons why the state is undertaking in increasing degree the supervision of the details of school work. It is not enough that communities should open schools or that pupils should be compelled to attend; the quality of education must be such as to justify the expenditure of public money and the investment of the pupils’ time and energy in the business of schooling.
Compulsory education implies obligations both on the side of the pupil and on the side of the community. It would manifestly be inequitable to compel children to go to school if the community failed to provide suitable, safe, and sanitary buildings. Because local wisdom in such matters is often limited, and local judgment biased by considerations of expense, the state has dealt with the matter both through general legislation and through vigorous inspection.
