The Service of the Public Junior College in the Current Crisis

Abstract

The junior college had its beginning in a desire for democratization of educational opportunity. The churches led the way in educational democratization through the establishment and the maintenance of the early academy, college, and university. Perhaps nowhere in the whole program of planning and striving for equal opportunity for all have the American people been more sincere and consequently more successful than in the field of education. From thinking which was at first somewhat hazy, the point of view has become accepted that a man born to any position in society should be free to determine his own level on the basis of his native ability, his ambition, and his willingness to struggle for the things which he most desires. It is, therefore, not unusual or surprising that the American people should have early supplemented the fine work of the church school and the private school with the establishment of the public school. The free public high school came to supplement the private academy. The state universities, the agricultural and engineering colleges, and the state teachers' colleges grew up beside the private colleges and in their graduate schools continued the work of the private institutions. Tuition in the high school was free to the families within the school district. Later, state laws required that tuition be paid for a pupil outside the high-school district by the district that had failed to provide the pupil with an opportunity for high-school training. Tuition in the state normal schools, colleges, and universities was made low and often was waived in an effort to