The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1876-02-27
MORE LIGHT on THE SCHOOL QUESTION.
IN. Y. Catholic Reyie wi

| An interesting bit of information con csrninp
| the public schools is furnished by the Ncp
England journal Of Education, which says: "rhe
l school population of the United States is
thirteen enthusiastically fourteen. OF this
! nunber eight millions enrolled in schools,
| and only four and one-half millions are in
average daily attendance. Through State aud
general government. public aud private funds,
provision Is made for the education of q mum
| Der OF children three times as large as that
actually IN attendance. With two-Shirds Of
onr educational force end money wasted, who
shall say that our system is a success 7" Is
there no Justification in the facts thus stated
for the protest of Charlottesville belong
mainly to the poorer classes, for whom alone
the State can justly provide-that they are
forced to pay for schools which are conducted
at an extravagsnt cost. aud which they ere
conscientously unable to use Yet the journal
which prints this Indictment contains on the
same page with it an attempted refut alton of
PRESIDENT Elliot's protest against the abuses of
the system in its high schools and colleges. 1t
Is no answer to such arguments as his to show
that town of 1000 New England families has
been greatly benefited by suoh school. Its
wealth would doubtless have increased in an
equally rapid ratio even If every parent had
paid out of his private purse for the higher
training of his children. 1t il the masses of
the poor, whose children can go to school for a
rev years only, and then be transferred to the
fields or the Workshop, who are wronged by
these excrescences of the system. Aud it il
their interests that should be looked to by the
State, and not those of the well-to. do middle
classes, who can always be trusted TO look very
well to their own. President Elliot of Har-
ward, writes like q man of sound sense, and we
are glad to see so many of the more thoughtful
denominations journals supporting him, when
he says: 90 am not in favor of supporting
schools above the grammar.school grade COM
pletely by taxation. hold that the parents of
children who go to high schools should con.
tribute part of the cost of maintaining such
schools. The ground of my opinion is simply
this: So far as is possible money raised by
taxation should be applied to objects of direct,
universal benefit, and should not be used for
the direct benefit of what must inevitably be q
small class 10 the community: Our system of
schools must be just one, or it will not be en-
during. To tax town of 5000 families for
the whole cost of educating mp to their
eighteenth year the children of 400 families, is
conspicuous injustice which cannot be said
to be without remedy. Therefore, 1 think this
practice is detrimental one, the interests of
the public schools alone being considered. 1
have been told that this is an aristocratic
view; but on the contrary, it seems to me an |
epinently democratic principle that people
who have special privileges should pay for
them, at least in part. As to trying to make |
fine culture the possession of the many, we all |
know that that s quite impossible. AS we'll |
expect to make all men poets.p