New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-09-03

Farmer must have seen them, and has no
right to pretend ignorance of their.exist
ence, They comprise the data raore i'm.
mediately relied upon, argued from, in the
Syracuse Address. Need we offer more till
these are challenged Or refuted? Here
they are;
RELATION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND CRIME.
TO TIE Editor Of The Tt'ouns: .,. -, ,,a .,
poctpts OF Universal Education through icao s ffee %
Ill progteis OF Crime 10 cur oTa ana onsE ans
kept pace with The Advancement ana
ledge and that of cur en penltsnnate
hcsreuy examined would lhow ,ns ss. sys
recently nye.ug the Official Returns nsoe 70 'ae 2ye
rotary OF sise BY the sheff Of tue s-yee o I
the State and IN the Courts OF Special Session, IN me reg
reehve cities from the yesrs l9fo to 1875 ootn
conpHAing period of nine year1, and ana ms ioo"ms
result:
9he whole number Of peracru returned having been
convicted otcmea IN ne several counties ana Clues OF vac
State during the period referred 9i9; OF thefe
o0 az u hs ssGs 8 rs about
hall were able merely read aud write Tho residue
were destitute Of dnS education whatever.
Assuming thereofe, ne Snderd lof tho returning Off
GER az TO what consrt good education to correct
only OF nearly q eco OF The inmates OF GU. prsons
and pepienares from The educated casies and only
sbeu one in sfrteen had received ordinary
school educston Facts like these worth more lhsna
thousand vague dece ,aons IS to the efficacy OF E&ucs
tiop with efefencet me progress OF Crime ..st3
Yours respectfully, g. :, RANDALL.
albany, June q, 1880.
Now turn from these to the isolated cases
so industriously raked together By A Farm
err of educated men who have committed
crimes, and weigh the one pile Of testimony
against the other. They are fair examples
of the arguments for and against Free
Schools. Has any man ever argued the I'M
possibility or the absolute non-sristence Of
educated criminals? Certainly not. Then
what does this parade of the cases of Bishop
probably G. F. Mitchell is meant,l Prof.
Webster, &c. amount to? By the same
course Of reasoning which makes their
crimes In argument against Free Schools, it
might be proved most unwise and dangerous
for any man to go to Heaven, since accord
ing to the popular belief there was once
great rebellion among the angels there, by
which third part of them were involved in
eternal perdition-and what has been once
may be again. Nay; until "A Farmer
shall have proved that third part Of our
educated people become criminals, we shall
insist that the argument from the current
theology against going to Heaven is stronger
than his from the fall of Webster, Sc. against
Free Schools.
It is not true that Massachusetts has only
about one-fourth the population Of New
York-not true that more capital and other
high crimes have been committed within
her limits, even during SO narrow space
of time as he has unfairly indicated, than
in this State-but it is true land he knows
it) that the commission Of a capital crime
by an Intellectually educated citizen of that
State has excited surprise, alarm and hor-
TOR throughout the civilized world. The
popular interest which attaches, and will
long attach, to the crimes of Eugene Aram,
DR.. Dodd, Prof. Webster, and few other
educated men, afford a striking and invol-
untary testimony to the value Of Education
as preventive of Crime. Five thousand
murders by illiterate persons would not have
excited so wide and lasting an interest as
did and do these crimes of the three indi-
viduals above named We have no shadow
of doubt that careful analysis of the Mas
sachusetts records would show If they have
been properly kept that three-fourth' of
all the crimes committed in that State with
in the last ten years have been perpetrated
by the one-fourth of her population who
have enjoyed the least advantages of intel"
lectual culture-and this fourth will be
found to have been by no means wholly
bereft of Religious instruction, even from
their tenderest years. Massachusetts has
her share of Crime, but the greater part Of
it is committed by persons not BORN on her
soil nor educated in her schools, but nur-
tured where such ideas are prevalent as
"A Farmer delights in Of the worthless
ness if not peril Of mere Intellectual Gull
ture, and the Improperly of Society and
Government attempting to provide for the
Education Of All.
And now as TO Moral and Religious Cul'
ture. We affirm that the elementary prin-
ciples of Morals are taught in our Common
Schools, and have been for many years.
We, surely, were taught them thirty years
ago, and we are confident the schools have
grown NO worse since then. The English
Reader is an admirable compilation with
reference to moral influence on the pupil
he must be perverse beast who could read
it through intelligently without moral bene-
fit. So of the National Reader, aud nearly
all the reading books used in our common
schools. And if there are schools in "A
Farmer's' neighborhood wherein pupils are