The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-08-11
Common Sense in Education of children.

Common sense m Education of Children.
How the American child is developed
into the true American style of character
IN the common school is far more easy to
he seen than to be described. The teacher
cannot over-estimate his Office I; the board
of education cannot be too wise but, after
all, the great thing is done when the child
rem of all classes and types of nature are
compelled to spend six years together I'M
der one roof. The very essence of Ameri-
can life is, that under our constitution and
laws we are obliged to work all our life in
perpetual contact with our fellow.men, re-
speeding in them all rights we claim for
ourselves. This involves us all in many
exceedingly disagreeable phases of expert
ence; especially does it CRATE on the taste
and sensibility of all orders of highly etlu-
Gated and superior men. II is a great trial
for a Seward or Sumner to reflect that
the vote of a scavenger counts as much as
his own; that James Fisk, Jr., has the
same legal right to be President as Abra-
ham Lincoln. But this is Just the slight
place" into which America intends to put
every superior man or woman-slirrotlnd
the best people by the worst, and compel
them to 60 to work and regenerate the com
munities in which they live, in self-defense
The most shocking thing in English society
to me, as | saw it, was that so many
wealthy, educated, respectable families
could live unconcerned, almost unconscious,
IN charming content, in country where
every tenth human being is pauper, where
the lower regions of society are u seething
pandemonilm of all that is most hideous
and violent in this world. Thank heaven,
the best people of this country cannot get
off into a little social clique and live in
this dreadful oblivion to human want and
woe.
The development Of the American char
acter demands, also, that opportunities
should be offered for the higher education
at public expense. Our high schools, free
libraries and art galleries are not an excre-
scence on our educational system. 1t is
just as important to the welfare of the
country that a poor child of genius should
have the means of becoming a statesman,
artist or author, as that the child of ordi-
nary gifts should be made an intelligent
citizen. The charge that these schools tax
the poor to educate the rich, is absurdlv
unfounded. The vast majority of pupils
who are found in these higher schools are
superior children of parents who otherwise
could not give them good education. |
They are there fitted for teachers, and the
various posts of skilled labor and profess
slonal service, or enrich private life with |
their culture. To abolish these schools and
compel every child of poor parents to rely
on private charity Tor superior education,
would be to back down upon the most Of
1enslve system OF European society-a pro-
cess we shall not undertake, even to ap-
pease the discomfort of any number of
wealthy and educated men, who. in con-
spring against our system of American
schools, are aiming at wholesale change |
in American society.
The common school is chiefly valuable.
not for the little knowledge it convcys-lit-
tie enough, God knows, of the iniinity of |
truth--but for its function as rehearsal of |
American life. There the bright boy is
compelled to endure the dull boy; the lit
tie idol of a wealthy home obliged to bear
with the girl of her mothers servant all
orders and conditions of little ones daily
held by a law that represents society and /
government, to live together, see each 9TH
er's good and evil, adjust themselves to
each others rights, learn to manage and
concilatc and generally to get on amid this
daily conflict, and thus to develop a char
acter for practical sagacity, character, cath
Ole judgment forbearance, tact and firm
ness. All the temptations of the common
school room are the temptation of ordinary
American life to which every man or wo-
man is exposed. There is danger here for
our little ones but we have fought $50 /
years to place ourselves in just that kind of
peril in our whole order of society. 1t is
too late to retreat now in nescction unless
we would give up in all.
Destroy the common school and place
one generation of our children in the sole
care of the family, the parochal and pri-
vate scoools, and you have a generation of
people that cannot live together as citizens
"a hot bed Of revolutions. Our only
safety now is to establish the peoples
in all its grades, on immutable foundations,
IN every State, county, township in the
land; make it the best that can be made in
the present circumstances of the people
watch it with that eternal vigilance which
is the price of liberty !; make it so good
and powerful that it will compel every pri-
vate and religious school to be its rival in
excellence and national spirit. Then place
our children there, just as we give our
youth everywhere to life, doing our best to
aid them in using its opportunities and
avoiding its temptations, praying all the
time that we may be able to establish
republic on the divine foundations of reve-
renee for God and justice to mankind.-
Rec. 4. ID. Mayo.