New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-01-24
THURSDAY, JANUARY "a, 1873

| member is Jealous of encrOachment upon lts
peculiar domain. As another result OF this
| divided administration of the educational fund,
| it may be questioned whether the General
Government would exercise its customary dill
igence in collecting a revenue which is to be
handed over to the States, and for the proper
care of which it is more remotely responsible
than it is for other funds, and whether the
local officials would be as scrupulous about
the proper disbursement of fund which de-
ponds upon no local enactment as they are
about the disbursement of money raised by
taxing the people to whom they are immed-
ately responsible. But if such objections are
considered trivial, if the ccntralizing tendon
cies of the bill are overlooked, and if the dan
ger that the operations of such law might
be blocked by collisions between the State
and National authority is ignored, the fact
remains that the act cOntemplates the crea-
ton of an expensive and cumbersome ma
chinery for the accomplishment OF results that
must prove very mcagre. The annual pro-
ceeds from all the sources enumerated in the
bill, whether distributed equally or upon the
uncertain basis of illteracy, would at best
amount to but a few cents to each child.
On still broader grounds, it is very doubtful
whether any advantage which might accrue to
individual States from an act Of this kind,
however skilfully devised, would not be over
weighed by the unfortunate moral effects al
most certain TO follow any donation of money
from without. Every State is able to furnish
free instruction to its people, so far as such
instruction is desirable; and the self de-
NAL which local taxation for this purpose i'm
plies, is not only measure of the popular in
tcrest in general education, but it sustans that
interest and keeps alive vigorous public SEN
timcnt which insures an efficient admlDlstra-
ton of the State system of education. Help
from without does nothing to stimulate this
sentiment, which Is, after all, the essential
foundation Of an efficient school system, but,
on the contrary, it has directly oppO-
site tendency. Bcneliciaries proverbay
become negligent and dependent; and
if a State relies upon assistance from the
General Government it will relax its own eff
forts in corresponding degree. OF course, it
will be urged that the bill in question makes
it obligatory upon the separate States to fur
nish a certain amount of instruction TO its cit
liens before it can receive any benefit from
the general fund, but it can readily be seen
how difficult it would be for the General Gov
crnment to exact from State any trustworthy
guarantee that such prelminaries had been
complied with.
Without doubt universal education is some
thing to be desired. But our experience as a
nation in recent times is full of warnings
against striving after worthy objects by ques-
tionablc methods 1t is altogether outside of
the province of the General Government to
"cducate the people," and the General Govern
ment has no machinery which it can turn to
such n use. The Public School system of
every State is and ought to be the creature of
the State and the Federal authority has no
more right to modify, or limit, or control this
system IN any State than 1t has to sweep it
away entirely and set up another on a brand
new pattern. Ii would not be a very audacious
prophecy to hold that any attempt upon the
part of the Federal Government " to educate
1.-THE people Of the United States" would be a
failure. In the very nature OF things such an
attempt would he pernicious.