Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-01-01
For the RECORD UNION
THE RELATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL
AGENCIES TO CIVILIZATION.

IL ea4io SNuieil bLu SSutuIy SICdb ollSSS is
placed upon the Importance of popular edu-
cation, and it is easy to procure popular as
sent to almost any project which promises to
contribute to this end. We are not content
with the general advance of public schools,
but we eagerly support free libraries and
museums and other educational agencies in
all our towns and cities. and we are always
reaching out for some new method of hasten
ing that popular enlightenment which in the
opinion of perhaps the majority is to deliver
the republic from all political ills and abuses.
Danish demagoguss and corruption, and trans
form every citizen into statesman, patriot,
and a sage. 1t is possibly well that the hu.
man mind is naturally both sanguine and
impulsive for if we proceeded only in ac-
cordance with cold logic, and reasoned only
from experience, it would be difficult to main
tain the belief and the enthusiasm which causes
this Millennium to appear within reach.
Yet it is also true that unless we sometimes
check the exuberance of our blind forward
impulses, and proceed to inquire into the re-
suits OF what has already been done, we may
be losing our labors. and wasting time by
struggling in wholly wrong direction. And
first as to the results of the education our
common schools bestow.
It is very necessary that the public should
not be self-deceived on this head, for if they
are the results viii be serious. So far
as can be seen, however, such self deception
is quite prevalent. Men believe that the edu-
cation the public schools provide is all that is
necess airy to fit their children for the work
and duties of life. This is disastrous error.
The schools at best can furnish nothing more
than the instrumentaities with which
competent knowledge of material facts may
be obtained. All that can be expected Of
them is that they shall teach the use of the
tools. They do not and cannot afford any
instruction in the branches of learning which
are most concerned in the formation of whole
some and pure character. Mere knowledge
without moral training of any kind APP
proaches closely to the conception of diabol.
ism. The most logical view of the Princi.
pie of Evil is that which regards it as cold
intellect, untouched by love, or sympathy, or
compassion. But it must be remembered
that our public schools do not equip their
scholars thus amply. They furnish little
more than the alphabet of material knowl-
edge, and it is therefore armed with this
alphabet alone that we send our children
forth into the world to make their own way.
The theory of public education goes no fur
ther than this. For example, DR.. Woolsey,
in his treatise on Political Science, puts the
case thus "How much education must be
supplied by the state to the children with
D." 10 its borders? We answer by saying that
:" the children should be compelled to learn
$50 much that they may be able, in after
''life, by exercising themselves il what they
"learD, to receive knowledge through books,
"to communicate with others at distance
"by pen and paper, and to keep accounts.
Beyond this, which all ought to know, and
(which ought to be essential for being adj
Emitted to the right of suffrage, the state
may not be obliged to CO." Here the pre-
else limits of permissible common-school edu-
cation are laid down. 1t will be observed
that DIR. Woolsey assumes the existence Of
some vague opportunity for acquiring further
knowledge s. in after-life." and that this as
sumption is all that gives even the color of
fnality to scheme which is cu,iously brief
and abortive in itself. But it must be borne
in mind that though men like Dr. Woolsey
realize the limitations Of the common-school
system, the people generally do not realize
these limitations. They have accustomed
themselves to regard the common schools as
affording everything necessary for the proper
discharge of all the duties and functions Of
citizenship, and one result of this blind faith
is that they have practically abandoned all eff
forts at supplemerting the work of the
schools
The situation therefore is Of this nature /:
We send our children to schools where they
acquire the barest rudiments of knowledge !;
and we affect to consider these rudiments as
equivalent to complete education. We can
not allow any moral instruction to be given
in the schools because of sectarian objections
and complications and yet we have ceased
to bestow any neral training upon them out
of school. The inevitable result is that they
enter life not only practically ignorant, but
destitute of that knowledge which is most
useful to keep the young from vice and folly.
They have never been taught self-restraint,
nor modesty, nor abnegation. nor reverence,
nor self-respect. They have acquired only a
brutal irsolence of demeanor which they mis-
take for manly independence, a contempt for
poverty. a love of indulgence and pleasure,
and a determination to get rich without be-
ing at all particular as to the methods. And
as the young men and women who bring such
qualities as these TO the matrimonial compact
must inevitably he less fitted to instruct their
children than their own parents were before
them, it follows that the progress of social
degenerscy is likely to Be swift. Perhaps
the increasing difficulty found in making the
marital relations hold permanently may be
traced in 10 slight degree to that system Of
popular education which ignores the develop
ment of the very qualities which are most
needed in order to make men aud women tol.
cradle companions for one another.
Having launched our boys and girls upon