The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1875-04-01
COMPULSORY EDUCATION.
The Question In the village us Compared
With 1t in the City.

The Question In the village rs Compared
With 1t in the City.
A correspondent from New Jersey in
quired recently as to the duty of villages
and small towns i'll regard to the execu-
ton of the law for universal education.
This writer stated that in his own vii
lage and in many others, there are no
night-schools, or "industrial schools
for the truant and semi-vagrant class of
children, and that if such children were
arrested the authorities would not know
wha, to do with them.
We need not inform the residents of
villages and small towns, in New Jer-
sey, New York, Pennsylvania, or in any
other State, says the New York Times,
that compulsory education is q more i'm
portant question for them than it is even
for this city. There is little police all
thority in our small communities, and if
q number of poor children grow up,
neglected and uneducated, they at once
begin to prey upon property, degrade
morals, and threaten even the security
of life. A striking instance was given
of this result of public neglect in the
IL
towns on the lower Hudson during the
early part of the past winter. The chill
dren of the poor and working classes
had been suffered in these localities to
grow up without education or moral
training, except such as the public
school impaired to those who chose to
attend. The boys were utterly without
education or moral discipline. They
only worked occasionally, never at
steady occupation. Their livelihood was
picked up by such employments as
tending COWS, watching goats, thieving,
and chance errands. When they be-
came older, the bolder among them
joined the ranks of thieves and burglars.
At last, with other more accomplished
associates, they began q thieving cam
paign through the whole countryside.
There was scarcely comfortable villa or
county house, from Tarrytown to Hast
ings, which was not either visited or
threatened by these young ruffians. The
houses whose families were resident in
the city in the winter, were of course
those preferred. Others, however, were
not spared. Even country stores were
opened. No one seemed able either to
detect or arrest these nimble thieves.
There is no police worth speaking of
in this happy and idyllic rural district.
The consequence was that the young
vagabonds had free sweep. Property
holders began to feel insecure of every
thing. Gentlemen, wearied out by the
days business, spent the nights in pa
trolling, their premises with guns and
pistols. At length, local patrols of the
citizens of these villages were organized,
with much trouble and expense. But
the close of these marauding expeditions
seemed to be brought by horrible mur-
der committed by one gang, on an inno-
in Tarrytown, though the guilty person
was never discovered.
There can be little doubt that these
petty thieves and young burglars We're
without education or moral discipline.
Many q saving supervisor and village
trustee of these towns no doubt bitterly
regretted last winter that he had not
permitted a little of the expense to be
paid out for prevention which he was
now forced to pay for safeguard or for
punishment.
Under the New York law, already
passed, and which will be passed by other
States, the school trustees call upon the
supervisors for an appropriation for a
small outlay on a "night school," This
for the six months need not cost over
$3.50. Then all children not attending
day school should be warned to at once
enter this school under penalty of arrest.
The place of detention must be arranged
by the school trustees. After a few
warnings, only a small number would be
obliged to be arrested. Compulsory
attendance at school would become a
habit.
But village residents should go fur
ther. Their duty and their interest are
clearly to see to it that the poor in their
localities are educated. There Oght to
be in all towns small industrial schools, "
carried on in part by volunteer labor,
like these schools in this city, designed
for the vagrant, poor, and ragged chill
dren. Great aid could thus be given to
destitute families, while at the same
time their children could be trained in
Industrious habits, and brought under
moral discipline. The increase of such
young girls as the Margaret" of un-
fortunate fame could thus be checked.
1t is the experince of the city industrial
schools that no children leave them to
become vagrants or thieves. They are
moral preventives. Each village will
thus be the guardian of its own welfare,
and spread the benefits of education
among all classes. Influences like those
of the visitors of the "Charities Aid"
which are reforming the poorhouses,
81
and crime among children. We should
then have system of education which
would reach to the bottom of society.
Not With That.
A colored man entered an Alexandria
I1o rl>o,. cbn,1 o,I Jor,onlaI eboua