Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-12-11
EDUCATION AND CIVILIZATION.

Mr.. Richard Grant White has got him
self into trouble by attempting to show
that the public school system is failure,
and that in fact it does not prevent the
States where it fourishes from producing
larger percentage of crime and vice than
appear in the States where it has taken
least hold. He endeavors to demonstrate
that there is in fact less crime proportion
ally in some of the most illiterate of
the Southern States than in some of
the most literate Northern States. The
New York Times answers Mr.. Whites
arguments, and asserts that he has reached
erroneous conclusions by falling to admit
some data of vital importance. 1t says
New England is densely populated, the
"South thinly; New England has many
large cities, the Southern States mentioned
every few New England has scores of
"large manufacturing towns overrunning
"with ignorant and degraded Canadian
"and Irish operatives the South has
''nothing of the kind and in New En-
"gland the conditions of life are hard, its
ssbare necessities are costly, and families
s'starve on incomes which would bring
comfort, if not luxury, to families of
spoor whites in the South" These are
sound considerations, but by far the most
important is the "infuence of foreign i'm
migration upon the criminal record of
''the Northern States" The Times points
out that sin 1860 the proportion of foreign
GERS to natives in New England was in
81, and in the six Southern States in
"l7, or, emitting the slaves, not more than
81 in %. And it is equally important to
remember that the sons and daughters
''born here to these immigrants, though
'they appear in the census returns as
sc native whites, are really a foreign ele
g ment, and one from which the prisons
"and poor houses are largely filled. There
can be no doubt that the criminal statistics
of the Northern States are so largely
affected by the foreign immigration that
any such attempt as Mr.. White has made to
compare the relative morality of the two
sections, as influenced by the schools, must
be failure. That the school system has
disappointed its best friends will have to
be admitted Mr.. White is correct in say
ing that it els not the reformatory agent
(which it has honestly been supposed to
"be" 1t has, however, failed mainly be-
cause the right methods have not been
employed, nor the right kind of knowledge
impaired, and not because knowledge is
powerless to civilize. How great pro-
portion of the crime and vice of our
thickly- populated States and cities is due
to the steady influx of foreign immigration
it is of course impossible to estimate, but
that it must be very large none can doubt
who have any acquaintance with the char
acter of the foreign elements referred to.
These bring to the country great mass of
ignorant adult population, and this igno-
rance is admitted, after brief and wholly
useless probation, into politics, and is per-
mitted in many cases to determine the
character of the government of important
centers, and even of whole States. Not to
take this into consideration in making a
comparison between the North and South
is to yitiate the whole proceeding,
and to do injustice to the North
while creating the mischievous i'm
preston that education exercises no
appreciate influence upon the morals of
the community. 1t should also be remem-
bered that if crime in the South does not
figure as conspicuously on the records as at
the North, one reason for this is that in
the South soma kinds OF crime are rarely
punished at all, and that the class which
enjoys this IMMUNITY is the most heinous.
In fact it is evident that Mr.. White has
jumped to conclusions with undue haste,
and that his argument requires to be re-
vised and reconstructed.