Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-03-21
SCHOOLS, DOGS, AND SOME OTHER
THINGS.


| know that your paper is thoroughly
in favor of the free school system, but
believe that you have sufficient manli-
ness to be on all sides of fair play, and
will therefore give a hearing therein
to one who is as thoroughly opposed
to it. | have just read Mr. W hitfield's
Thoughts for Thinking People"
Doubtless his arguments are weighty
and convincing-to himself-but I fail
to feel their force. My objections to
State education are fundamental. A
government like that of sparta or of
Prussia, holding the individual the
absolute property of the State, might
reasonably undertake his training, and
would have precisely the same call to
provide for his moral and material as
for his mental needs. None, l pre-
sumo, will deny that sound body is as
essential as sound mind, and that the
souls welfare and final salvation are
paramount to both. Certainly people
competent to choose their own medi-
cines and religions. and the dispensers
thereof, might be entrusted, as well,
with the selection of school books and
school masters for their children. Our
Constitution guarantees to all Life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness" but,
mark you, it is pursuit only-not pos
session-from which l hold it clear
that the State is no more authorized to
furnish free instruction than jews
harps and ginger bread, gratis, to its
scholastic population"
As to the system as conservator of
morals-there is very old book which
says, by their fruits We shall know
them" In Massachusetts,, where it
has come to very full and perfect
Towering, the proportion of convicts
is one in four hundred, with a still
larger per centage of paupers, and
spite the lavish expenditures there are
twenty-five thousand children who
never attend schools. In answer it
will probably be said that they are of
an altogether different class from our
people, yet this is the very class sought
to be attracted hither by the tempting
bait of free education" Verify, con-
sistency is a jewel which doth not or
dinarily adorn the modern legislator
or the man with an idea. As an agent
in decreasing taxes-before the present
system was inaugurated there were but
two States wherein the rate was lower
than in our own. If at the end of FIVE
years we can make so good a showing,
| will, with right good will, acknowl-
edge myself mistaken. As to the
school taxi hold the CHRONICLES
creed-which it somehow does not ap-
ply in this case-that there should
never be taxation, for any purpose,
which does not equally benefit the
whole people. Again, | object to free
education" on the ground that, like
Southern farming and Russian civili-
cation, it is generally less than skin
deeD, and reminds me forcibly in its
results, of the application of bushel
of plaster to a hundred acre field
The case may be different where it is
not, as with us, complicated by the
problems of race, but my reading upon
the subject inclines me to a contrary
opinion. New York's pride is her
public schools, yet it was only the other
day that n new pupil was beaten to
death by the scholars of one which has
been held in all things a model GER
tainly striking commentary on the
absence of that sweetness and light"
which, according to Matthew Arnold,
are produced by culture" If | were
to state my opinion that our present
system is clumsy, burdensome, inefi-
cient, scarce worth its cost, even as a
specimen of How not to do it, it
would probably be judged less peril
nent than impertinent to the matter in
hand, so instead, will say that ''free
education" of necessity, drifts into
compulsory education, and l ask all
and thoughtless-if they are
prepared for that advance to centrali-
zation. My own theory of govern
ment, State, national, scholastic, or
is::that the very least amount
thereof which will possibly answer is
always the best, and that We had far
better err on the side of too little than |
too much. Mr.. Whitfield says, very
truly, that public and private schools |
cannot eo-eKist, | risk nothing by !
saying, that in this good county of
Montgomery. more harm has been
already done the rising generation by