Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-02-01
communicated.
Compulsory Education.

Compulsory Education.
Mr.. EDITOR The correspondence
IN your last issue relating to the
above subject is so far from what |
believe to be the general view of the
matter, and presents the matter in
30 beclouded light, that presume
to open some fallacies and present
soms points not considered by you in
your views recently published.
The intimation of c. X. D., that to
iegislate for the purpose of obliging
children to attend school a certain
number of months in a year is
''usurping power or stretching be-
yond proper limits an old power"
and when it is not the sense of the
mass of people" is certainly calculat-
ed to deceive the minds of those not
familiar with the point in question.
we see no usurpation of power in
enacting laws that shall prevent
crime and vice, and save cost to
State and individuals. If the State
has the power and right to send
criminals to prison, has it not the
same right and power to send chill
dren to school for pursuing a course
OF vice and idleness that soon leads
them to lives of crime? Has not the
Taxpayer right to demand legisla-
ton obliging these children TO at
tend school and improve the advan-
tages that he is forced by law to
provide? The State has made large
appropriations, from which schools
receive much Of their support, and,
when parents refuse from ignorance
and neglect, to put their children in
possession of knowledge( which alone
perhaps shall make them law abid-
ing), has not the State right to de-
mand fair improvement Of these
most desirable advantages, instead
OF waiting for them to become Grim
inals in the community
When parents allow their children
10 run in the streets to be educated
in vice and crime, instead of sending
them TO school to remain under its
moral and educating influence, then
1T is, and then only, that the law will
have force and who will say it
should not, even if we have no con-
sideration for the interests of the
child?
While we acknowledge the ability
of The writer, it is ludicrous to observe
his stress upon this point: that in
passing such law the legislature will
have passed beyond that line, that
terrible cline" beyond which is found
the 'legions of oppression" And
what an interest he has taken in the
little urchins that amuse themselves
in throwing stones through the
school house windows, in that be de-
sires to relieve them of the oppres-
sion of being obliged to attend school
three or more months in a year.
Again, the writer has drawn SO
heavily upon imagination that he
has nearly removed the power of OBJ
tanning authoritative testimony in
our courts, and in so doing drifts away
from the idea that our Legislature
has the common amount of reason
and judicial capacity.
The public mind is to be educa-
ted ; but he does not tell US how /;
and if we mistake not, the school
house has been, and Is, the best place
to do this.
Mr.. ID. would have us try an old
law that in many States has been
discarded, and apportion the money
upon the attendance at school. To
correct the evil by taking away part
of the means now employed would
be simply furnishing the innocent for
the crime of others, and thereby have
no effect, whatever, upon the guilty.
We cannot see how this would effect
change in the public mind of those
who already send to school, and GER
tainly it could not effect those who
do not. By sending to school she
amount Of time that might be re-
quired by law, we understand people
to express it as their opinion that
this is right, and that it would be no
injustice to demand the same Of all.
And now, if the bill soon to be
brought before the Legislature is only
for trial, it is evident that it is not
the bill for we need law that has
been tried and proved efficacious,
which is the case with the law which
requires all to attend school given
amount of time in year. If other
States are adopting this plan, is it
not pattern we might wisely fol-
low. N. Y. NORMAL.