William G. Carr, 1942, Linking Schools with Life
Many schools are like islands, set apart from the mainland of life by a deep moat of convention and tradition. A drawbridge is lowered at certain points of the day in order that the part-time inhabitants may cross over to the island in the morning and back to the mainland at night.
Why do these young people go out to the islands? To learn how to live on the mainland.
When they reach the island they are provided with excellent books that tell about life on the mainland.
Once in a while as a special treat, a bus takes a few of the young people off the island during the day to look at what happens on the mainland.
When everyone on the island has left in the afternoon, the drawbridge is raised. Janitors clean up the island and the lights go out. No one is left except perhaps a watchman keeping a vigil along the shoreland. The island is lifeless.
Once a year people from the mainland visit the island to watch graduation, after which some islanders depart never to set foot on the island again. After graduates leave the island for the last time, they are bombarded by problems of life on the mainland.
Occasionally one of them can be heard to say to another: ‘I remember reading something about that when we were on the island.’
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