Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-06-11
SATURDAY, JUNE II, 1859.
THE PER1Ls OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS,

THE PERILs OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In this country public and private schools
have never come into direct competition. In
Europe the friends of education have been d.
vided, and, to this day, discussions are not I'M
common, upon the comparative merits of the
two systems. The opponents of the public
school system dwelt upon the danger of trust
ing large numbers of boys together, with their
rapid proclivities to mischief, their crude no
tons of honor, and often absurd objects of
ambition They pointed with something like
triumph to exceptional instances of failure, and
affirmed with the INSCRIPTIONS cunning of
controversialists that the errors of the system
itself were radical and incurable.
Clearly, they were mistaken. The pious
and selfsacrifcing founders Of the Puritan
Commonwealth settled that question forever.
Systems of education and government,
whose advantages were obtained rather
as a matter of privilege than of right,
answered very well for monkish insttu-
tions and for privileged classes; but they
were not adapted to the wants of free and
equal people. They vested kind of monop-
oily of intellectual gifts and prerogatives in the
hands of the hereditary almoners of power, to
be used at their discretion for the control or
the oppression of the mass. The common
people had no weapon against governments
which abused their submission nor against
the church which trified with their confding
faith. Here in the New World we proposed
to have a new condition of things. In the
Old they continued to hug the shadows of that
medieval night for a long time afterward, and
some, no doubt, are hugging them to-day.
The earliest legislation of Massachusetts on
the subject of education took its warning and
its character from the mischiefs of the exclu-
sive system. In one place, that learning
might not be clouded by the false gloss of
saint-seeming deceivers, and, in another, that
lit might not be buried in the graves of their
fathers in the church and in the Common
wealth" the first free schools were established
To guard against dangers to sound doctrine
and to good morals, which might result from
the unaccus omed association of youth dur
ing the ages of doubt and f1uctuation, it
was commended to the serious consid-
Grafton and the special care of the Sc
lectmen not to admit, or suffer any such
to be continued in the Office of instruct
ting youth, that had manifested them
selves unsound in the faith or scandalous in
their lives. And if temptations must come in
spite of all wise precautions, it was deemed
better to learn pupil to resist them, than to
avoid them altogether. The result of their
forethought is a system of free schools, which
is without parallel in history.
Still the old question rises from time to time,
is there not something essentially immoral
in system which compels the association of
well meaning but susceptible children with
those who may have already verged toward
more precocious depravity And some timid
parents, in lhe first flush of their fear, choose
to call their children home or send thon, 10
private teachers, rather than accustom them
to that courageous and selfreliant virtue which
is the only defence they can have hereafter.
The answer to this anxiety about the common
schools, is that their faults are all derived from
the few who misuse their advantages. The
vices which virtuous people fear are developed
elsewhere, and under other influences. They
sometimes invade the precincts of school and
violate the most benefcent and salutary re-
straints. 1t is no more than is done elsewhere,
and In places consecrated to as pure and excel
lent purposes They are intruders, and not a
part of the household. They are the fruits of
parental thoughtlessness or of early misfortune.
But when we consider how little moral in
structon is given in many families, and how
prevalent is the mistaken notion that to keep a
child in ignorance of a sin is Synonymous with
arming him against it, the wonder is not that
melancholy examples of folly now and then oc-
cur among school children, but that that they
occur so seldom, and with so many circum-
stances to appeal for commiseration and par
don.
1t is greatly encouraging to consider on what
safe and firm basis of public virtue the COM
mon school system now rests. Its perils are
simply those which are incident to all institu-
tions for which our incomplete humanity is re-
sponsible. The feeling which inspires distrust
and alarm, lest it may be, under any probable
circumstances, promotiye of incorrect morals,
is feeling of cowardice and is wholly IN
worthy to be followed. Under the constant and
always judicious care which it has received
from the State, and the jealous watchfulness
with which good citizens have always guarded
it, it has become the peculiar instrumentality
for moulding crude, fuctuating, formative
youth into athletes, ready for the worlds bat
ties. We owe to it the intelligence which dis
tinguishes the hard workers in every depart
ment of activity We owe to it much of that
sterling virtue which adorns the mass of New
England life and which even rogues assume
for its responsibility. AIAl->ff~we owe it less
on the score of doctrine than was contem-
plated by the colonial legislators of 1850, it is
because it has educated us into convictions
which are more useful and appropriate than
the best of doctrines.
The JUNE FRosT.-Sad accounts of the
frost come to us from every direction The
calamity appears to have been general Corn,
potatoes, garden vegetables, and fruit were