Morning journal and courier., 1880-09-01
Price Four Cents.


 tion are both very erroneous, and the answer
 will be against the usefulness of our public
 schools in fitting their pupils for the duties
 and the business of life. Go into any house.
 hold, the mistress of which has had 20 years
 experience of her position, and ask if in any
 employment she may have to offer, whether
 requiring skill and intelligence, or mere
 faithful obedience to orders, she would pre-
 fer public school pupil to one who, although
 'greenhorn, " has been well brought up in
 respectable, but humble, family, and you
 will be astonished, if you have not been so
 astonished before, at the quickness and the
 earnestness of the decision against the pro-
 duct of the public school The young wo-
 men who, after few years of education at
 the public expense, seek situations, are (with
 very rare and notable exceptions) entirely
 unfit for their positions, and not only so, but
 incapable of being fitted for them by con-
 stant instruction given in the kindest man.
 ner. They are ignorant, slovenly, heedless
 headstrong, self-conceited, disrespectful, and
 altogether unamenable to the discipline of a
 well regulated household Their 'seduca-
 tion' has simply fitted them to read dime
 novels and cheap newspapers, to covet dress
 altogether unsuited to their position, and to
 go to the theater or on excursions with a
 young man" Their view of the require
 ments of their position is that they are to do
 just so much work as will give them the right
 to demand the money that will enable them
 to compass the aforesaid enjoyments, and
 that they are to do no more. Of notions of duty, of interest in their work, of desire to
 learn if, of docility of that respectful
 bearing which begets respect, they are in nocent as Hottentots or Yahoos As to their
 morals, they are generally in every respect somewhat inferior to young women who have | had no public school education, and who can | hardly read and cannot write. No house. l keeper of experience desires to take public | school pupil into her service in any capacity. | Nor are the boys who come from our pub ] lie schools much more admirable products Of | the system small number of them are of | that human order which is born for intellect ual labor and is impelled to it by a resistless 1 inward force some, of course many more, | are of moderate mental ability, of sober, re- served and almost timid dispositions, and | these profit in a certain degree by their edu- | cation, although it is doubtful whether the | benefit resulting to themselves or to society | iustifes the means and the expenditure by which it is attained. But as to the large l majority of the boys who come from our 1 public schools, ask those who employ them. 1 Ask the master mechanics whose memory | goes back to a time when apprentices came only with the instruction and the training | received at home, or in a dame-school The l answer, unless am in error, is sure to be l that, although the public school boy may be 1 more glib of tongue, and know superhclally a little about geography and history of which 1 his predecessor was ignorant, he IS generally ] inferior in all that makes good apprentice, a I good workman, thrifty, substantial, respect able man. He is less respectful, less docile, less in earnest about his work, and, on the
 whole, inferior in principle, in faithfulness, and even In manners, to the boy who had been taught merely to read and write, to fear God, and to honor his father and his mother.
 Nor do the records of crime justify the general assumption that public schools are conservative moral force in society. And in Joo No hao hnoF1 oh ff life who regards intelligence or any kind or degree of education as moral safeguard In telligence and education may teach caution, but they do not inspire principle; and not unfrequently natural gifts of mind and acA quired knowledge made merely the eff fective engines and promoters of crime. It would be interesting to know what propor tion of our native criminals have been pupils of our public schools. I have not accumulat- ed any statistics upon this subject; but judging by my observation venture to say that the proportion is very large, so large that if it were authentically ascertained the publication of it would produce a profound and painful sensation.
 l It is to be remarked before the further ex- l animation of our subject that beyond ques- | tion, there is very considerable number Of the pupils, in both sexes, of our public schools l who do profit by their instruction there, and ! who do become good citizens, estlmable men ] and women, and efficient workers ln various 1 departments of the business of the world 1 But these it will be found, are, with com paratively few exceptions, young persons | who if our public school system did not exist, would receive in other ways all instruction necessary to fit them for their positions in l life. But as the public school system exists | in its present state, and as the fathers Of 1 these young people are taxed to support it. | taxed not only directly if they have property l of any kind however little, but taxed indirect- | ly if they have property or not, on every ex- 1 penditure they make-this being the case, it | would be strange indeed, most unwlse and | most unthrifty if parents of moderate means did not send their children to take advantage of the elaborate and expensive system Of pub I lie instruction which year by year they are so | heavily mulcted to maintain. But these boys I and girls cannot be set down either in their 1 adolescence or in their maturity to the cred 1 it of the public school system, and used as | the basis of an argument for it's maintenance. 1 They are merely public school pupils by &C., 1 cident, and would receive all necessary in 1 struction if our public school system 1t | now exists had not been developed For in 1 struction beyond that point who will venture | to say that even their own parents should be l taxed against their will ? Still greater is the 1 reason against taxing the rest of the public 1 for their superhuity.
 There remains the point that our public school system fits the people for an intelli- I gent discharge of the political functions or | duties peculiar to democracy Does any man of sense believe this Could any man 1 who can render reason believe it in the face l of the history of the country during the last
 half century? If our public school system
 1 can do anything for the benefit of our poi-
 tics, it must certainly and primarily be in the
 | fitting of it's pupils to choose good men for 1 the making and the administration of our
 | laws But the facts of the case are so fla | grantly so notoriously, to the contrary that it is needless to set them forth. It is not nec- ! forr tO CrOh hac n tlm6S ] fathers or even for this mature man to be- l come, Horace says, praiser of the dolngs l of the times when he was boy. We have \ all of us who have reached the fullness Of | manhood, seen the steady deterioration of the public service-a deterioration equally re- 1 markable in the capabilities, in the morals, 1 and in the manners of those who are called ] into it either by appointment or by election, ! but most particularly by election, which should be- and which indeed is, the most ] trustworthy test of the political value of our public school system. We all remember l Tweed and the flock of unclean birds of prey I of which he was only the uncleanest and the most ravenous To say anything of the crim- ! innlity of these creatures is now unnecessary; ! but they were not only criminal they were | sordid, vile, and vulgar. They were men who, l in their tone of mind and in their habits and manners, were loathsome to all decent peo- ! ple They had the gift of making vice more I hideous than it is intrinsically. They were no pretonQeQ pn1lanburOpI5t5 pIO1os6lAB uA1- 1 versal benevolence, no brilliant demagogues I setting themselves up as the high priests of 1 freedom, no successful soldiers dazzling the popular eye with military glory; they were 1 not even decent, well-mannered, wen-educa- ted gentlemen which some rogues have been 1 They sought their sordid ends openly (among | themselves and their supporters) by the most I sordid and vulgar means. And yet we have seen miles of the streets of New York filed with procession in which were borne at short | intervals transparancies with the portrait of this vulgar villain, and the legend "The man we delight to honor." And yet we narrowly escaped seeing bronze statue erected to such I man. who was base in all the ways of base ness Now, the worst of Tweedism (which l is not confined to the city of New York, but . pervades the State, and, indeed, more or less | all the States except two three in New 1 England and at the South), was not Tweed himself but the condition of society which made Tweed possible. That such people he and those of whom he was the chief should