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 iucation, Its Advantages and 
 The Necessity of Co-operation 
 
 By and Between 
 
 Parent, Pupil and Teacher 
 
 An Address by Charles Eugene Clark 
 
 Before the Mothers' Club, Second District School, Covington 
 
 May 14, 1919 
 
EDUCATION, ITS ADVANTAGES AND 
 THE NECESSITY OF CO-OPERATION 
 
 BY AND BETWEEN 
 
 PARENT, PUPIL AND TEACHER 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY CHARLES EUGENE CLARK, 
 
 Before the Mothers' Club, Second District School, Covington, 
 May 14, 1919. 
 
 Dear Friends : 
 
 IN this life if we are to accomplish that which is worth 
 while, we must work for the corhmon good; for the ad- 
 vancement not only of the few. but for the progression 
 of the many. We must teach that the earth is the Lord's, 
 and the fullness thereof, and that all men are His children 
 and entitled to its benefits and blessings, and that our 
 children are our most precious assets ; and that though 
 the State may give to them, as to us, an economic holding, 
 yet. that only through co-operation, working together, can 
 we make of it an eai"thly paradise. 
 
 And so, my friends, in all progressive communities, 
 including that of Covington, with the fear of God in their 
 hearts and the love of mankind, we find a people endeavor- 
 ing to correct abuses, and trying to increase the sum total 
 of human happiness. For it is through a just co-operation 
 that we lift this earth towards Heaven. 
 
 Our entire land and people, both urban and rural, are a 
 part of our common country, and the aim of its inhabitants 
 should be the maximum of human improvement, enjoy- 
 ment and progress. 
 
 As empires find the reason for their being in the families 
 of which they are composed, so we must learn that the 
 unit of the Nation is the home, and that the welfare of 
 the individual, including the children of the household, 
 should be the chief consideration of the State ; and that 
 our lives, homes and families should reflect the ripened 
 
fruit of an advanced civilization. Let us never forget 
 Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi, who found in her 
 children, her chief est jewels. Are yours not as precious ? 
 
 We shall be held strictly accountable for our oppor- 
 tunity and stewardship in the matter of making for the 
 welfare of our children ; and, as we are said to be a people 
 of idealists, engaged in a great practical task, we have no 
 greater duty than that of the nurture, welfare and educa- 
 tion of the children, in order that they may be prepared 
 for the duties of life. 
 
 Much is expected of us ; aye, rich harvests shall be 
 required at our hands, and we must pay in much fine gold ; 
 and we are paying it, as witness the wonderful system of 
 our Common Schools, with their splendid corps of teachers, 
 our commodious and beautiful schools, homes and the 
 great interest manifested by our people and officials, in- 
 cluding our Board of Education, in matters educational. 
 
 As a social order should provide for an economic 
 development, a political stability, and a desirable social 
 life ; so the object of all religion, art, literature and econ- 
 omics, is the creation of better human beings, whose aim 
 shall be the uplift of their fellowmen. Wherein can we 
 better start, than with our children, as we educate them to 
 become men and women of character and of honor? And 
 especially so, as the Child is the Father of the Man, and in 
 the world's tomorrow supplants him in the world's affairs. 
 
 Those of us favored in head, heart and hand, as well 
 as fortune, should be as the light upon the candle to guide 
 the footsteps of their fellows, as they wade through the 
 Sloughs of Despond towards the heights of the Delectable 
 Mountains. 
 
 And so should we elder children, including both parent 
 and teacher, lead the younger generation in the paths of 
 duty and progress, so that they shall, in due time, traverse 
 the highways of advanced progression, and in their turn, 
 maintain those ideals, which make for all that which is 
 best in the life of the individual, the community and the 
 State. 
 
 Author 
 ]UN S2 0/9 
 
My friends, both as parents and teachers, there is a 
 life of service which we may render at home and in the 
 schools, as well as on the hustings. One in which we 
 may fight and serve as valiantly as though we faced "shotted 
 cannon." A service, and a duty may be rendered in the 
 home and in the schoolroom, which shall make for the 
 advancement and uplift of our children, and add to, and 
 make for, their joy and wonder of living. 
 
 To that end, let us inspire and encourage those enlight- 
 ened conditions in school affairs, which shall make for a 
 proper curriculum, sanitary, beautiful, and well-arranged 
 school-houses, with all the necessary paraphernalia con- 
 ducive to study and learning. 
 
 Let us insist upon good sanitation, in that we find a 
 sovmd mind in a sound body, and that in order that chil- 
 dren may thrive and be happy, they must be clean and 
 manly. Our co-operation in these matters are indeed 
 essential and timely. 
 
 Let us teach our children, both at home and in the 
 school-room, to be patient, kind, humble, courageous, gen- 
 erous, courteous, and unselfish, as well as good natured, 
 guileless and sincere. For these virtues are said to be of 
 the "Spectrum of love," and make for the stature of the 
 perfect boy and girl, man and woman. 
 
 Let us teach them, by both precept and example, that 
 this world is not a playground, but a schoolroom ; that life 
 is not a holiday, but an education toward better things, 
 and that the ideal of what one may be, becomes to him or 
 her, the hope and pattern of what he can, and will be. 
 
 As good seed sown upon good ground brings forth an 
 abundant harvest, so the seed of beautiful lives, however 
 humble, may flower and fructify right here in the old 
 Second District School, and in our homes, to great human 
 helpfulness and happiness, indeed, into a semi-Divine Civ- 
 ilization that shall lift men and women above sordid things 
 — even to the heights of the mountains, and place them 
 into a Garden of Eden, and so we may have in a Paradise 
 Regained, one which was lost. 
 
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After all is said and done, we too are children, ever 
 learning the lessons of life, as we, also, are confronted by 
 its problems and duties. And so it is in all humbleness, 
 that we should pursue the scheme of things, and endeavor 
 to solve life's problems, including that of our children, 
 which lead to and make for life's end. For is it not 
 written, "that it is only as a little child that we can enter 
 the Kingdom of Heaven"? Friends, we must be ever un- 
 selfish and ever helpful, in order that we may enter the 
 Temple of Life through the Gate Beautiful, which is that 
 of Duty and Service, and realize that Service is Love 
 personified. 
 
 "I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty, 
 I woke and found that Hfe was Duty." 
 
 "The path of Duty is the way to Glory, 
 
 And he who treads it, thirsting only for the right, 
 
 And learns to deaden all thoughts of self, 
 
 Before his journey closes, he shall find 
 
 The stubborn thistles bursting into glossy purples 
 
 That out-redden all voluptuous garden roses." 
 
 My friends, education is said to be the Ark of Safety, 
 and that outside of it is the Deluge of Ignorance, Super- 
 stition and Destruction, and that it begins with life; as 
 early in Hfe are laid the foundations of character; and 
 that we have in education a companion which no fortune 
 can depress, no crime destroy, and no thief break in and 
 steal. And as we empty our purse into our head and that 
 of our children, so we have a paying investment in Knowl- 
 edge, one out of which shall come much fine gold, even 
 contentment and honor. 
 
 The educated man or woman, boy or girl, is a depend- 
 able friend, a credit at home, and an honor abroad ; for 
 education and culture are ever an honorable introduction. 
 
 True education "disciplines the feelings, restrains the 
 passions, inspires true and worthy motives, and instills 
 morality and religion. It awakens a love for truth, gives a 
 just sense of duty, and opens the eyes of the soul to the 
 purpose and end of life." 
 
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Education is said to be the Palladium of our liberties, 
 more effectual than a standing army, and the schoolhouse 
 and the school master, the first line of our defense ; and 
 so as we retrench the wages of the school master and 
 belittJe his calling, we must raise those of the recruiting 
 sergeant. The more schools, the less jails ; and the less 
 you have of the former, the greater need of the latter. 
 
 Sidney Smith has well said, that the true object of 
 education is to give children resources that will endure as 
 long as life lasts, habits that time may ameliorate but not 
 destroy, occupations that will render sickness tolerable, 
 solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and 
 useful, and death less terrible. 
 
 In its widest sense, it is said to include everything that 
 exerts a formative influence, commencing with the cradle 
 and ending with the grave. 
 
 We must realize that education is not mere learning, 
 but also exercise and development of the human heart, 
 mind and soul. It aims not at the "mere stuffing of the 
 child's mind, as a warehouse with goods, but rather re- 
 gards it as a living fountain, which properly cherished 
 and regulated, will elevate life and nourish the generations 
 of men." 
 
 In the pursuit of the education of our children, as well 
 as ourselves, we should aim and strive "to attain that which 
 is necessary, then, that which is useful, and, finally, that 
 which is ornamental." 
 
 "Marble monuments may perish, plates of brass be 
 defaced by the tooth of time, temples crumble into dust, 
 and even proud cities become nameless and forgotten 
 mounds" ; but the illumined minds of your children, and 
 their illustrious deeds, will endure forever. 
 
 In these United States we have more than 30,000,000 
 of school children, with above a half a million school teach- 
 ers, and some 300,000 schools, with a property valuation 
 in excess of $800,000,000, and with an income mainly de- 
 rived through taxation of over a quarter of a billion of 
 dollars, costing us some $8.50 per capita of population. 
 
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And yet we are but paying our school teachers through- 
 out the nation a niggardly compensation, the salaries paid 
 the males averaging about $600 per annum, and that to the 
 females of some $480. How beggarly these sums for 
 such princely services rendered ! This is indeed a case 
 where the laborer is well worthy of a better hire, and is. 
 entitled to a most substantial increase. 
 
 See to it, that a better recompense, one more com- 
 mensurate with the high service rendered, is paid to these 
 noble men and women who devote their lives to the train- 
 ing of our children in the schools, and who have and are 
 contributing so largely to our general wellfare. In this 
 you may co-operate for the advancement of your children. 
 By generously co-operating with our progressive Board of 
 Education and school officials we may strengthen their 
 hands, stimulate more largely their interest in school affairs, 
 and advance the cause of education throughout our city. 
 Interest in and appreciation of their effort is the wine of 
 life. See to it that they get it. 
 
 As environment moulds largely the character and con- 
 diJct of the child, so must we surround the children with 
 ennobling influences in both home and school. Domestic 
 conditions should be of the best possible, and the growing 
 child should be surrounded with a wealth of books, the 
 charm of music, and the fragrance of flowers, while the 
 less fortunate ones who come from homes of straitened 
 circumstances, should find in the school room and the school 
 atmosphere, proper standards of beauty and life, which 
 shall dissipate the misery and grayness which becloud them, 
 and open to them the door of Hope, as it shall bring to 
 them the Music of a New Day with the promise of a 
 better life. 
 
 Yes, indeed, the education of our youth calls for the 
 undivided co-operation of parent, pupil and teacher, and 
 the most generous support of the Municipality and the 
 State. We get in this life as we give and can take out no 
 more than we put into it. 
 
 In these schools of ours we must teach our children 
 
that contentment consists not of great wealth, but rather 
 of few wants, and that life's greatest reward is that peace 
 which supasseth all understanding, which cannot be gotten 
 for gold, and neither shall silver be weighed for the price 
 thereof. 
 
 My friends, as parents, next afj:er that liberty which 
 you enjoy, together with necessary food, raiment and 
 shelter, and the worship of God, according to the dictates 
 of your conscience, there is no privilege more precious than 
 that of the free and untrammeled education of your chil- 
 dren. See to it that they get the best. 
 
 As you surround them with a wealth of books, works of 
 character and standing, in which they may read "everything 
 of something, and something of everything," they may 
 remain at home, within its four walls, and yet traverse 
 the world, climb its highest mountains, and front the very 
 universe of stars. 
 
 Education is the very Sesame of Knowledge, and he 
 who delves into and masters Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, 
 Science, Law and Art, as well as Letters, holds the Golden 
 Key that opens to him the Republic of Learning, the true 
 Cosmopolis. 
 
 The child must co-operate in his education. He must 
 be diligent, shunning idleness, said to be the greatest 
 prodigality in the world, and which will lead to, and make 
 for, his undoing. 
 
 You must teach, and the pupil must learn, veneration, 
 for that Omnipotent Power which gives "loveliness to the 
 lily, color to the violet, fragrance and beauty to the rose." 
 
 You must bid the child to observe the handiwork of God, 
 
 "In that Cathedral, boundless as our wonder, 
 
 Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon, supply, 
 Its choir, the wind and waves, its organ, thunder. 
 Its dome, the sky." 
 
 They should observe how, 
 
 "The dust we tread beneath our feet. 
 
 Shall change beneath the summer showers 
 
 To golden grain and mellowed fruit 
 And rainbow-tinted flowers." 
 
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In the laboratory, our children should observe how the 
 elements chemically separate or combine, and as they ar- 
 range their crystals, "so we have the glorious opal, the 
 beautiful sapphire, and the scintillating diamond" ; and, 
 further, while the uninitiated but see in the wayside pool, 
 the muddy bottom, with its ooze and creeping and crawling 
 things ; so may he, whose sense and soul has been attuned 
 to finer things, see in the selfsame pool the reflection of 
 the multi-colored dome of Heaven. 
 
 My friends, may we not believe with Epictetus, that, 
 "It is nobler to raise the souls of the children, than the 
 roofs of our dwellings." Education truly is worth all it 
 costs, and to its devotees and ministers, all honor ! 
 
 Let us encourage the children to revel in our parks and 
 playgrouunds wherein, on holidays, they may "go gypsying 
 with the wind," and behold the "flowers with a thousand 
 faces, as they gather the kisses of the morning." 
 
 Let us teach them, in God's out-of-doors, the secrets of 
 the dews and damps, and let them behold how Nature has, 
 during the long quiet hours of the summer night, "lit her 
 lamps upon each grass blade for the pageantry of the 
 morning." 
 
 May the children, "See in the feather fallen from the 
 bluebird in its flight, the tinting of the Hand that touches 
 the tented sky with azure, and in the redbird's glowing wing, 
 the fingerprints of Him who weaves a ribbon of the falling 
 rain and binds therewith the troubled brow of Storm." 
 
 As our children clamber over the fallen tree trunks, 
 of Devon Park and up its flowery banks, let them behold in 
 its moss, "a piece of Nature's velvet, fresh from the very 
 loom wherein was woven the glory of the morning," and 
 see in its glorious trees as they tower heavenward, the 
 fingers of God. 
 
 Let both parents and teacher impress upon the children 
 that courtesy, reverence, and kindness, make for nobility 
 of character and understanding, and that in their inter- 
 course and daily life, both at home and abroad, that all of 
 
chivalry will be found in gentleness and manliness, and all 
 of courtesy in kindness. 
 
 Let us impress upon their tender minds and hearts, as 
 they behold the helpless creatures, over which we have 
 dominion and which claim our protection — 
 
 "That he prayeth best, who loveth best, 
 
 All things, both great and small. 
 For the dear God who made and loveth us, 
 
 Made and loveth all." 
 
 As we stimulate and appeal to its finer, better nature, so 
 we awaken in the child, the voice and soul of the sainted 
 Thomas a Kempis, that, "If our hearts are right, then will 
 every creature be to us a mirror of life, and a book of 
 holy doctrine." 
 
 Let us all realise, that to get a proper estimate of life, 
 we must look past the gilded frame of the picture, to the 
 beauty of the painting," and "that we measure the pro- 
 gress attained by a people, not merely by the accumula- 
 tion of the means of living, but by the value and character 
 of the hfe lived as well"; and that the glory of our Nation 
 consists not only in the extent of its power and dominion, 
 but also in the moral and intellectual pre-eminence of its 
 people. Thus we shall get a true perspective of life's ideals 
 and motives. 
 
 Both as children, and as grown-ups, we are too prone 
 to regard "Cornucopia, the golden, as the exalted horn 
 among the nations, and see the glittering millions lavished 
 from its broader end, which flares and blossoms like the 
 tulip, but strange to say, we do not oftener see the dimin- 
 ished man coming out of the lesser and other end of the 
 selfsame horn." Such men may stand upon a three penny 
 bit and be housed in a thimble. God pity them. 
 
 Friends, "though wealth may make a ladder and rig it 
 out with rounds, coinmanding loftier planes and broader 
 views, yet there must be a foot bold enough to climb them, 
 and a brain balanced enough to regard the grander horizons 
 and growing lights, undizzied, and undazzled, and a heart 
 TRUE ENOUGH to be touched and kindled by it all, into the 
 
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living belief, that these words are worthy of all acceptation: 
 Faith, Hope and Charity, and the greatest of these is 
 Charity." 
 
 In closing, I would adjure you to instill into the minds 
 and hearts of our children, the beautiful sentiments of 
 Dr. Parker when he bids us, "To do our duty in shop 
 and kitchen, in the market place, the office, the school, and 
 the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front 
 rank of some great battle and knew that victory for man- 
 kind depended upon our bravery, strength and skill. When 
 we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that 
 great army which achieves and makes for the welfare of 
 the world. We will have attained an education which 
 makes for the brotherhood of men and the Fatherhood of 
 God. 
 
 Mothers, may 1 recall to you the tender sentiment of a 
 lover of mankind, of the home and its mistress, one who pro- 
 foundly understood the human heart. "You may think what 
 you will of it now, but the song and story heard around the 
 kitchen fire, have colored the lives and thoughts of most of 
 us, have given us the gems of whatever poetry blesses our 
 hearts, whatever memories linger in our yesterdays. 
 
 Attribute to the school and school master what we may, 
 the rays that make up the little day called life, radiate from 
 the God-swept circle of the heartstone." 
 
 And so, my friends, whatever message, word of truth or 
 beauty I may have brought to you this afternoon, I owe 
 largely to those "beloved ones," who have long since sat 
 down by the waters of crystal in the Kingdom of Life. 
 
 May the remembrance of all our beloved be to us as 
 a benediction, and may we, in the fullness of time, again 
 rejoin them as we, too, having finished our pilgrimage, shall 
 pass on from earth to heaven. 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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