"PRIVATE SCHOOL SERVES NARROW SELFISH GROUPS"

"There can be little doubt that most private schools have been established for the purpose of serving narrowly personal and largely selfish interests," was the comment of Professor F. T. Spaulding '17. Associate Professor of Education, when asked yesterday for his reaction to the statement, "Private schools are neither needed nor justifiable in a democracy," made Thursday evening by Dr. T. H. Briggs, Inglis Lecturer for 1930.

Himself a graduate of a public high school. Professor Spaulding has had ample opportunities for study of the problem of secondary education, having taught in both public and private secondary schools.

"Dr. Briggs has intentionally dealt with our present system of Secondary Education from the standpoint of its weakness," he continued. "Considered from this point of view there is ample evidence, in the facts known to students of education, to justify also his criticisms of public schools. It is unquestionably true that there has been no general agreement, among those responsible for our present program of secondary education, upon a statement of purposes which recognizes tangible return to the supporting State as the foremost criterion of effective teaching. The purposes which have been accepted have been largely sentimental in nature. They have been based upon the apparent assumption either that every individual has an unquestioned right to all the education which he wants, or his parents want for him--at public expense, or that the more education a pupil can be given of whatever nature the better it is for him and for the State. In consequence, there is to be found today a wide variety of purposes guiding our public school work,--purposes which may conflict with each other or give inadequate recognition to each other, not merely between different school systems, but between different classes or grades or schools within a single system. Until there can be agreement upon some statement of purpose which, as Dr. Briggs demands, shall give due recog- nition to education as essentially a State investment, it is unlikely that public secondary school education will prove itself worth what we now pay for it.

"Dr. Briggs' characterization of the great majority of private schools as detrimental to the public interest has likewise much to support it. It is fair to question, however, whether those schools which have been planned to serve experimental purposes or to represent interests not in conflict with the interests to which the public schools are devoted, are as unjustifiable as Dr. Briggs has maintained. The history of education records many contributions to educational theory and practice from experimentation carried on in private schools; and large as are the contributions now being made by experimentation in public school systems, no insignificant credit for our increasing understanding of the problems of education must be given to certain existing private schools.

"It is true, as Dr. Briggs points out, that schools of this type constitute a very small number of all the private schools of the country. Yet even though the schools which contribute little are at best harmless in their effect upon public education, there is reason to doubt that we shall ever want to wipe them out. American democracy seems to have established it as a fundamental principle that the rights of any minority shall be respected so long as the exercise of these rights does not do serious and demonstrable harm to the interests of the majority