The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1871-02-18
Dailp Argus.
OFFICIAL CITY g. COUNTY PAPER
COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

COMRUISVkt EDl CAIIONs
The danger to our public schools th.t
must result if the National Education bill
before congress be passed causes us to refer
to this subject again. This msasute has it's
beginning with radical politicians who see, in
the dissatisfaction of some with our public
schools, a chance to strengthen their party,
by giving it Il new issue or, if it be forced
upon the people, BY giving it more extensive
government patronage with which to buy q
continuance of power.
We are willing to admit that there is q
dissatisfaction with the pablic schools but
it is only among that class of parents who,
engrossed BY the pursuits of wealth, have
left the training of their children entirely to
the schools, and, when they thought them
prepared to take positions of usefulness in
life, or as ornaments to society, we're sur.
prised to find them sadly deficient in both
mental and moral culture. Instead of pol
ished, erudise, earnest thinking men, and
accomplished, gentle, lovable women, the
adolesceut generation were found to be fast
young people, with certain slangy smart
ness and free -and.eAsv style of manners,
but With notable absence Of those improved
Qualities cf head and heart which alone
could make the men good, honorable and
useful citizens, and the women sutelsry
saints Of happy homes-iu both sexes
growing irreverence for oil that our fathers
and mothers were wont to hold sacred, posi-.
lively shocking to the thinking mind of the
old school.
The disappointed and disgustsd parent,
without rejecting how far his own neglect
of obvious duties was responsible for the
deplorsble defects of the rising generation,
at once srrAigned the management of the
public schools, and nding it in many respects
vulnerable, to censure, rashly condemned the
entire system.
The fault is not in our public schools.
Badly managed as they may be, they fulfil
il great measure the purpose for which
they were instituted, by placing within the
reach OF all classes the facilities for obtain
ing the rudiments of common education.
They we're never designed to do m ore. Those
who expect more Of them labor under a grave
mistske-a mistake fraughs with incaleula,
bic mischief. The unwise parent who is
deIuded with the idea that the public schools
common or high, can confer all the educa.
ton his children need, discovers his error
only when it is too late to remedy it.
Unfortunately for the interest of human
ity, the troubles Of the time have placed il
positions of powea and influence a class o
political economists whose zeal in behalf OF
universal education far outruns their dis
csesion. These enthusiasts. by their eztrav
agant laudation of what is miscalled ou
"systsm of popular education" have created
in the public mind an exaggerated idea 0
its functions, and when it has become sp
parent that the great expectations they have
encouraged cannot be realized, instead O.
admitting the taliacy of their views, they
have attributed the failure to the deprsvity
OF the people in not evailing themselves O
She protfered blessing, and the remedy the,
benevolently propose is compulsion.
Compulsory education, entirely st vari
ance as it is with the spiri: of free instisu
tions, and repugnant to sll republican feel
ings, is becoming rapidly familiarized to th
popular mind. 1t has been gravely discussed
and found respectable advocacy in the NEE.
ings of our teachers institutes; inhusntia
journals have recongized it as being ''or
the cards for the future y New Englsnt
senator and radical leader has announced i
as the great measure of the dominant party
the objective point of its "new departure;
end, to crown the whole, it has within few
days been sprung upon congress, In the
shape of q bill for . national system of edu-
cation. In view of these facts, it is cer.ainl
time that public opinion should be aroused
10 the investigation of the subject. To raise
at once the warning inquiry of "whither ar'
we drifting p in this matter, becomes the
special and imperative duty of the press.
That compulsory education is imprsotica
BILE in this country, and incon patible, in an,
country, with free government, seems to b'
susceptible of easy demonstration. The e1
ample of Prussia now SO admiringly cited b,
its advocates, should really be the stronges
argument against it. Only under the mos
despotic of European governments could tn
system be enforced, and the fruit it has born
is as opposite to republicanism as anythin
tina. could we'll be imagined-no less tina
the consolidation of number of petty MOI
arches into powerful imperial despotisu
with the assertion of the "divine right {
kings" and the denial of the capacity
the people fer self government. as its card
nal principles