Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1874-01-15
Report Upon Compulsory Educ:s-
tif,ll.

the Committee on Education of the \.
| York City Council of Political Reform,
| has pre- pared report upon compulsory
| education, the result of careful study
and collation. of information from many
sources, and presenting many most in
| teresting and important facts. The re-
port maintains that universal education
is essential to free government: that,
conscious of this truth, every free state
hae established system offree schools,
and that self preservation imposes upon
our government the duty of requiring
the education OF he neople, that there
may be an inteiiige.- exercise of the
suffrage. From Mr.. h.. xkins's survey
it appears that the national govern
ment has alreauy given one hundred
and forty millions of acres of the pub
lie lands to aid education, and it is now
proposed to devote the entire proceeds
of public lands, yet undisposed of to the
same purpose; and the government has
established permanent bureau of ed
ucation.
The magnitude of the national school
interest is suggestive. There are more
than fourteen and a half millions of
school-children in the country, and two
hundred and twcuty-one thousand
teachers, and the annual expense for
schools is more than ninety-tive mil
lions of dollars. In the State of New
York there are fifteen hundred thou
sand school-children, twenty-eight
thousand school-teachers, and one mill
lion volumes in the school libraries.
The school property Of the State is
worth twenty-four millions of dollars,
and it is improved at the rate of two
millions of dollars annually. The
school law lays tax of one mill and a
quarter upon each dollar Of valuation
of taxable property, whicn realizes two
and hall millions of dollars; but the
people voluntarily tax themselves four
times this sum, making the whole
amount annually spent upon the
schools in this Stale ten millions OF dol
lars. The city of New York had last
year more than two hundred and thir-
ty thousand public-school pupils. 1t
employed three thousand teachers, and
spent for public instruction three mill
lions three hundred thousand dollars.
The report declares that the Ameri-
can doctrine is that the property of the
State shall educate the children of the
State, and that public education is pub
lie economy. The city of New York
pays more to restrain and punish few
thousand criminals, who become such
mainly from the want of education,
than to educate the two hundred and
thirty thousand children. Statistics
are eloquent upon the intimate cornec-
tion of ignorance and crime. In France,
from 1867 TO 1869, one-half of the in
habitants could neither read nor write,
and this half furnished nlnety-five per
cent of those arrested, and eighty-sev-
en- per cent of those convicted of crime.
In our six New England States only
per cent of the inhabitunts over ten
years of age can neither read nor write,
and this small minority commits 80 per
cent of the crime. In New York and
Pennsylvania an ignorant person COM
mits seven times the number of crimes
than one who cannot read and write
and in the whole country the J
rises to ten times. The stu
dy of statistics shows that it is the
school rather than the church that re-
strains crime. The same
study shows that, other things being
equal, as education increases, pauper-
ism decreases. This is true of Europe,
and not less so of this country, Thus
in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois one
in ten of illiterate persons is pauper,
while of the rest of the population
there is but one pauper in three hun
dEed persons.
AS the chief expenses of government |
arise rom crime and pauperism, which |
invade the order and justice which it |!
IS the function of government to maln- !
tain, the extirpation of ignorance is one |
Of its first duties; and since it provides I
he means of education, it must require |
hat the end be attained. The results
)fa compulsory system elsewhere are
amiliar to all students of this subject.
In Gen. Hazen's work upon the school
md the army in Germany and France
le says, plainly, sit is the compulsory
,ducation of children which makes the
German army SO effective" Wherev-
,r it has been thoroughly tried it has
,ecome fixed policy. In this cOun-
~ Boston has had such law for 20
,ears, and the last ten it has reduced
ruancy from school sixty per cent.
New Hampshire. Connecticut, Rhode
sland, and Michigan have adopted it,
md SO has the city of London, in En-
,land. where the power is diScretiona-
n the fact that the average attendance
me. third of the whole school pOpula-
ion, and upon all schools, public and
private, only one-half. r--
Public education, of course, should be
ocular, for the Constitution properly
orbids any favor to any form of relig-
Gus faith, Religious education should
,e left TO the churches. This, which is
he original American doctrine, has
lot been questioned by any sect until
he growth of one chiefly composed of
citizens of foreign birth, and whose
,hief until recently was foreign ruler.
This sect, the Roman Church, under
he direction of foreign authority,
which has been unlaWfully fostered at
he expense ofa State, demands parO-
.hial instead of public schools; in other
words that the pub money shall be
divided among the sects, and education
De intrusted to sectarian clergymen.
This parochial system is old in Europe,
specially in Spain and Italy, and its
'esults are familiar. If produces few
highly educated and a mass of ignorant
with large pauper and
criminal class, low morality, super
'tition and tendency to despotisn, with
national stagnation. The results of the
.wo systems may be seen also in this
There are five and half
millions of foreign-born inhabitants,
mainly from countries like Englah and
Ireland, where the parochial system
has Prevailed, and they may be con-
;idered a fair average product of that
method. The facts of comparison are
shown in this table:
Iuier- Pau Crimi- Inhdbh-
dtes. pers mails. ans.
sys- tL.Ii
tenn 40 I6O to the 1000
system Ia
in 2l States............ $50 10 75 to the 10000
system ....f
in Massachusetts II 40 IL to the l0Ou0
Thus this sect demands that the Amer