Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-01-25
Extract from a report of President


Extract from a report of President
Richeson, of the ST Louis school board.
The support of common schools by
public taxation is the needed recogni-
tion which capital is in duty bound to
pay to labor. Ignorance does not know
what it stands most in need of, and can
not be expected to discover and apply
the right means for its own ameliora-
ton. The poor and ignorant understand
very imperfectly the relation of educa-
ton to power, and they are too closely
pursued by immediate necessities to
adopt the far-seeing policy of investing
their small earning in the education of
their children.
The rising generation is fed and
clothed and housed by the industry of
their parents at an annual expense of
from one hundred to five hundred dol
lars. The cost of education in the pub
lie schools averages twenty-five dollars
year. This small sum serves to util-
ize the vast sums expended in the sup
port of youth. The era of childhood is
the era of capitalizing physical and men
tai force for manhood. Where there
are no schools, the youth lay up capi-
tai OF evil propensities, narrow supersti-
tions and depraved tastes. Where the
schools are good, the youth that attend
them convert into capital fund of sci
entifc knowledge and habits of industry
and punctually, and of obedience to rule
This difference can be measured in dol
lars and cents, and seen in the value of
real-estate investment in community,
as well as also by the higher moral
standards usually applied to determine
the results OF culture in civilization.
Statistics widely collected by the Ma
tional Bnreauo of education give the tes-
timony of experience in different parts
OF the country as to the increase in val
gives to labor, The simple ability to
read and write and make arithmetical
calculations, insures an average of
twenty-five to fifty per cent better
wages than are given to illiterate labor
ers. The complete common school edu-
cation adds from fifty to one hundred
per cent to the wages. Education gives
availability and directive power.
BY way of training, or in an edu-
cational point of view, whatever the
young pupil is directed to do he should
be kept at until he can perform it easily
and vigorously. Whatever it is. he now
derives pleasure from this exercise and
he is now ready for another conquest.
If he be permitted to leave this before
this state is attained, he is more than
half conquered before he undertakes the
next subject. He goes at it with feel
ing of pain. Hence it is that many are
much better educated by having passed
through simple division, than others
who have passed two or three times
through the textbook; these find it diff
ticult to do, or to attempt to do; the
others can do it vigorously, and derive
pleasure therefrom; they are in a good
mental condition for new conquests 1t
may be seen why the mere committing
of rules and definitions is not educative.
Teachers, outside of school hours and
recitations, how much time do we spend
in seeking to become acquainted with
the laws that govern mind and child
growth? We must have an ideal, and
that ideal must be somewhat true to ma
ture, or our work is random.-Edaca-
tional Column of the Conservative