Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1865-04-15
Requiring the EdueatIen Of cbIld,.,

1 thN EuaSallUH vi NNI0TeN.
On the 4th instant in the Assembly. H.
Tilton, from the Committee on Eduea.
ton, 81 united the following report on the
resolution directing them to inquire into the
expedieney ofrequiring parents and guar
dams to send their children to school, public
or private, for a stated length of time in each
year:
IL Is hardly necessary for your committee
70 present any arguments to prove the right
| OF the state to provide system of instruction
for the children within its borders. The SET
tied convictions OF the wisest and best men
oil our nation, are expressed in the various
common school systems established in the
United States, and there is, at present. no
| serious intention on the part of any commun
1 ity, where free public schools are established
j TO recede from the ground taken, or dispute
the correctness of the principles on which
these schools are founded. Assuming then
that the state has the right to use all means
necessary to secure itselffrom disorganization
and overthrow: and that the education of its
citizens Is necessary to its security,your COM
mittee feel impelled to state that the complete
application Of these principles will, in their
opinion, warrant, if not demand, the passage
of law compelling all children of a certain
age to attend school during portion of each
year. IL is not sufficient to provide systems
of instruction, the people must avail them.
selves of the advantages furnished by those
systems-the children must not only nave an
opportunity TO secure an education-they
must be educated, or the designs of educators
will be thwarted, and the funds provided by
the state and the people will be wasted. The
question for consideration is how large pro-
portion of our youth can be permitted TO
grow up in ignorance and the state be secure
from serious injury on account of the evils
engendered and entailed by such ignorancee
Statistics show that but little over half of
those between the ages of four and twenty
years, residing in the state since its organi-
cation, have attended sclIool, either public
or private. Can this state of things be pe.
mitted TO continue? Can the State long bear
the drain upon its industrial and moral re-
sources caused by the failure of the people to
appreciate and use the means provided for ed
ucating their children? And shall we be told
that it is an Infringement upon private rights
to compel parent to send his children to
school? Has the State right to take the
money of the father to support schools and
yet no right to the time of his son, no author
ity to compel him to be a student therein?
The most graphic expression Of the value
of time is found in the proveIb or saying,
rectness, how can any man who admits the
right of the state to tax him to support free
schools, deny its right to take the time of his
children, or in other words, to compel TO use
a portion of that time in attending the
schools for which he paws? Ia the opinion
of your committee it is no more an infringe
ment upon private rights in the one case than
in the other. But admitting that the state
has the right to compel parents to send their
children to school, the question occurs, is il
expedient to do so, is it good policy to adopt
a measure which will conflict with the views
and practices of the people to the extent
that this is likely TO do? To this we reply
that it is not an untried policy. 1t has
been in operation for several years in Prussia
and some other German states; also in Bos-
ton and one or two other cities in this coun-
try and tie attention of those specially in
terested in our educational systems have of
late years been called to this subject, so that
it is not so new to our people generally IS
many suppose and large number of our
most experienced and thoughtful educators
have come to the conclusion that the time has
arrived to adopt this measure as a necessary
means to secure the end aimed at in the es-
adjustment of our system of public instruc
tiou-the education of the whole people. 1t
is cheaper and Better to train children, while
young, in our public schools, than to main
tain them in later years in the reform school,
the Jail or the state prison; and spite of tenn
porizing thories, the state has right TO pre-
| vent the commission of crime, as well as to
| punish IL wnen comnIITeu. may NOT De
wise at this late day of the session to attempt
the passage of a law upon this subject, and
your committee have concluded not to report
bill embodying their views, but they can
but express their decided opinion that anoth-
er session of the Legislature ought not to
pass without the enactment of law giving
to the various towns and cities of this state
the power to adopt compulsory measures to
secure the presence, either in our private or
public schools, of all those for whose educa-
ton and training those schools have been
established.