Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-09-01


wants of the state and give but lit
tie point to an argument agains
sectarian education. The sectariar
element hardly defines itselfin then
or deters or persuades attendance
on them.
| AS we go west these conditions
altar. The inhabitants of the stgte
are divided in national and in relig-
ious affiliations. The result is in
slant and disastrous unsystematized
education. Ohio has thirty-three
colleges and nine universities, very
few of which are ever heard of out
side of her borders. Their average
income is less than nine thousand
dollars, and they can do very little
to lead and control educational for
ces. In few of the Western
States systematic public inst1uc-
ton has been entered on and the
state has ventured to provide and
direct all the grades of education.
| Michigan presents the best example
of this method, and her university
has a broad and enviable reputa-
ton, which greatly stimulates and
easily combines all the educational
institutions Of the state.
In this line Of effort Wisconsin is
rapidly following. Her university
has been placed in the front of her
system, and closely united to all its
branches. Pupils throughout the
state pass from the graded schools
to the university by an examination
fixed by the university and with
free tuition. The legislature which
recently closed its session indicated
its thorough adoption of this meth
cd by voting eighty thousand dol
lars for the erection of science hall
and by further placing in the hands
of the regents property to the value
of forty or fifty thousand dollars.
This theory of education, now ac-
copied and rapidly passing to its full
development, does not exclude pri-
vate institutions. It merely affirms
that they shall constitute no part of
the public system nor be allowed to
anticipate or displace it. Working
with it, without arresting it or
or breaking it up, these colleges
may do valuable services to the full
measure of their own resources.
They stimulate public instruction
and are stimulated in turn by it;
give expression to private enter
prise, solace to sectarian feeling, and
in some instances, at least, concen-
trate a religious influence to de-
gree not possible in public insti-
tuition. There are six colleges in
Wisconsin-all small, most of them
quite small. Two are Congrega-
tional, one Episcopai;an, one Meth
odist, one Baptist, one Seventh-day
Baptist.
On the whole, it seems to us that
the position taken by Michigan and
Wisconsin is the most tenable one
open to them. They undertake to
do Ito do completely and to do well)
what they have entered on-popu.
lar education. This method is more
defensible against the extreme re-
ligious sentiment than any other.
Abandon the district school to it.
self, and it is fragmentary, feeble,
insufficient, and is reproached as ir-
religious, though there to say the
least, moralinhuence is most needed.
Establish complete system of
schools, and they become strong,
mutually sustaining, indispensable
to each other; while healthy NOR
al as well as intellectual life ought
to pervade and may pervade the
whole. The feeling adverse to pub
lie instruction is met everywhere
and with strength enough to with
stand it. The weak line of district
schools is hardly sufficient for this
purpose. These can scarcely fail
to become more and more feeble
when deserted by higher institutions
and warred on by private sectarian
instruction.
Onr educational system has mis-
sed completeness through a very
general deficiency in intermediate
schools and in high schools. This
is unavoidable when the two ex-
tremes are managed by different
parties for different ends. The va
rious kind of institutions th.tt have
crept into the debatable ground
part of them private, part of them
public-show this confusion; gram
mar schools, high schools, graded
schools, academies, seminaries, Sc
lect schools, boarding schools, fitting
schools, Catholic schools, all of them
representing more or less variable
and uncertain factors.
The Legislature of Wisconsin
strove, also, at its last session, to
correct this evil. Wisconsin is en-
4 - L J.