The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-12-05
EDUCATIONAL COLUMN
Education aud Labor.

D 1Okv OVA ~ Al Az
Education aud Labor.
"a paper read before the Teachers Association
at Humboldt by Mr.. Dewitt.
Any education, whether primary OR higher,
must ut man to do something or it is worthless.
It matters little whether he stops with the SIM
ylest rudiments or climbs to the summit, his life
is failure II he cannot work better with than
without what he has learned.
when the test is applied, community measures
a man by what he does, not by what he carries
in the shape of diplomas and recommendations.
If he knows and skillfully applies the principles
| of his profession he succeeds, and few will In
auire where or how he was educated. A proper
literary training never units us for labor.
Work is what the world wants from every one
of US. The world owes no man living without
labor. If we do not labor physically, we must
labor mentally. True, effort or care in procur-
ing an education, either general or special, does
not procure exemptions from labor-they may
enable us to substitute one kind for another,
may wonderfully Tighten the burdens and bring
thousand new delights to cheer US by the way,
but no voluptuous ease. Our schools, then, Of all
grades, should inculcate industry; that which
makes the most Of life and perfects what is
1
to train the intellect but the moral nature as
| well.
1t would be well for us to inquire whether our
schools are as promotive Of moral training as
they ought to be and can be. Is not the standard
of promotion from the lowest class in the ele-
mentary to that Of the graduates in higher
school, limited too exclusively to intellectual
attachments and not sufficiently of moral char
| fbo md In hQ schoolc and for
promotion in the various spheres of life is for in
tellectual 'sharpness:only, can we expect the
young to value or produce much else? No one
who contemplates the means Of promoting indi-
vidual good or the public welfare, can be salts
fed with an education which so intensiies intel
lectual activity as is overlook the necessity for
the training and direction Of the moral nature.
Ignorance breeds crime. From three to seven
per cent. of our population 1.-THE wholly uned-
ucated) in the United States commit thirty per
cent of all our crimes, and less than One-half OF
one-half of one per cent. is committed by those
who are educated beyond the common school.
Thus, according to the U. s. reports the uned-
ucated man is nine times as likely to commit
crime, or be criminal, as the average of the
men who have been taught, and more than a
hundred times as likely as he who has been
i
from condition wherein educational culture
and refinement have generated rigid self-con-
troll, the nearer you approach to its opposite-a
condition of ignorance and barbarism. The pro-
pensity to resort to violence to redress evils suf
fered can be easily overcome by education. Had
the United States and England aided and en-
courared the education Of their industrial class
es. moral and intellectual, neither trades I'M
ions nor strikes would have been the necessities
of the wOrkmen When there is trouble between
employer and employed, it is not the more intel
ligent workman who formed the trouble, it is
| the ignorant and the vicious. In all the juven-
lie reformatory schools Of the United States
about s5 per cent of the offenders come from ig-
norant vicious homes.
Education not only prevents crime, but all
agree in estimating an increase Of wages to those
who are literally educated Especially those who
understand the sciences which underlie their
particular Occupation(as very considerable,
| ranging from 80 to 100 per cent.
Again, the individual who is educated finds
situations at remuneratiye prices, where the ig-
norant fail. Farmers and merchants rather
save their sons from vile associations by
furnishing them good ones who are educated,
| than paw dollar less per month and hire an
| iguoramus who will prepare the way for their
| sons to squander their patrimony. The house
wife, too, will pay for brain and moral training
as well as muscular force. There seems to be
an idea prevailing among the youth OF our coun-
try (and perhaps they are not all entirely free
much designed to fit is for labor, it is to ena-
BILE us to avoid it altogether. Forgetting that
labor is honorable in all, and that every indus,
try is ennobled by bringing to its service well
informed mind. The farm, the shop, the
counting room, the house are all graced by a
liberal culture, while professional man Of
e..1 nv fs
ucation i'm letters or skilled labor is necessary to
prevent crime. The immigrant coming to TINS
country with education, either in schools or
skilled industry does not bctake himself to
| crime, but the foreigner untaSht in books or IN
any trade, is thrown i'm almost complete desti-
tuition. He brings to the labor market ark NOT sPe
ply muscle awkward and unavailable. He has
| come too, to a land of liberty, where he
necessity to do only what he liked. He finds his
kind of work poorly. paid and in poor demand
He suffers soonest in any pinch; goes to the
s pncs a a do his wors He therefore,
most exposed to vice and crime and least DE.
Tended by culture or character against evil
ways, and consequently figures largely in crime
and breaches of the public peace; and all because
he is not educated, either in the schools or to
trained labor.
| Again, the man who is unframed in brain and
hand will have mate like himself; will have a
comfortless, unclean and naked house; Will
have very few enjOyments, and no pleasure ne
| can buy will seem so cheap or so agreeable as
the pleasures of a strong drink, for 20 cents
| worth of poor whisky will make him forget his
cares, his poverty, the wants OF his family and
himself, and feel for the time rich, full and
happy.
| The classes most debauched by drink are the
classes least taught in letters and least skilled
| in labor and now reduced to poverty and
wretchedness by their habits of drink, they be-
take themselves to lives of vice and crime; 1t Is
| true that education will not change bad heart
| but II means intelligence which will keep man
| from the things which society Furnishes
land more than that education in schools or
trades, means wide opening Of all ways to res
pect and honor, makes a man q bulwark OF So
| ciety instead of freebooter upon 1t, gives him
dignity and worth of character which is the
hope and glory OF our race.