The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1882-03-02

government, / don't disdain
churches, but this l say,
THE NEW PROFESSION
of the teacher is divinely appointed
instrument to do the work that nei-
ther of them are at present prepared
to do; and when they ask me how
the state found the public school
and pay for it, say simply because
its own existence depends upon the
intelligence of the common people.
If the state has right to build a
levee to keep the Mississippi out of
the town or out of a wide district; );
if the state has a right to pay a
police to keep
ALL sCoUNDRELIsM
out of the streets, then / say the
state has the right to found schools
to keep out the eruptions and the
freshets of gross ignorance that
come up with the wickedness. The
state has a right to preserve its own
life. They are to be common. /
rejoice in the fact that the Ameri-
can common school is a common
school in more than a mere term.
l mean by that that once in every
generation. the whole population
have to come down to level and
start afresh
.-. THE COMMON SCHOOL,
once in every generation, brings all
the children to one level and then
they individually shoot up as far as
they can go, and their children come
on right back again, and once in
every generation everything is level.
There sits the ministers son, and
there sits the son Of the minister's
washerwoman. There sits the poor
MINIS genius and there the rich
mans on one level; and
the school don't know anybody by
its parents, but by what each one is.
L glory in it that it is thus common.
Tremendous applause.
L glory in the common school of
America because it is common to all,
high and low, bond and free. Zap
plause. In Egypt nobody could
go to the schools except the royal
family; it was treason in the com
mon people to break into knowl
edge: it was burglary, it was theft,
it was a punishable offense.
knowledge was then the preroga-
tive of class. Now the wheels are
turned completely around, an it is
crime to-day for the common people
not to send their children to the
common schools of America. l
know some men say you have no
right to infringe the fundamental
right of t1e parent. God never
gave the parent the right to be a
monster. God never gave to the
parent the right to stand between
his unknowing child and his own
self as he is to be developed by time
and by education. If man is so
dull and senseless, so vicious, so
ignorant, that he has no apprecia-
tion of what the child gets by educa
ton, the state is bound to stand be-
tween that brutal parent and that
unknowing child, and hear the pro-
test of the child against its defile
ment and the destruction of its
fundamental rights. The state must
take care of it.
IT MUST BE NON sECTARIAN.
In order to meet all the exigences,
however, the common school must
not only be free, public, common
absolutely, but it must be non
sectarian. Great Applause. 1t
is contrary to the fundamental doc
trine of liberty of conscience and of
that equity that we believe in to tax
parents to have their children taught
in things which they abominate in
religious Anatters. You have no
more right, because you have a
majority, to make a japanese or
Chinese child learn Christianity
than they would, if they were in
majority, to make your children
learn Buddhism. Applause. You
have no right to make a Jewish
child learn the new testamant than
the Jews would have, if they were
in the ascendency, to destroy the
new testament and turn your child
into the old testament exclusively.
fApplause. You have no more
right to make Catholic childle en-
learn the Protestant doctrine than
the Catholics would have if they
were in a majority to make your
children learn Catholicism. Ap-
plause.
Well the reply to this is, that is
the way you bring up
A GODDESS SCHOOL.
Intelligence without religion, men
say is dangerous. In the division
which civilization has brought on,
the division of labor is one of the
great achievements and develop
ments, and for every special kind
of labor its own appropriate organ
lied instrument or machine. We
don't undertake any longer to do
twenty things with one organiza
ton, but we give to each important
function a machinery of its own
Now, the family first teaches the
elements Of morality and of religion,
and the church tax the young
child next and is ordained, if it has
any function. at all, to teach the
child what are the theological tenets
of religion.
The common school is neither to
take the place of father or mother,
nor to take the place of minister or
priest. 1t is to develop intelligence
pure and simple. That is the busi
ness of the common school, and III
it answers that end it answers that
for which it was made. Do you
talk of
a GODDESS sAw-NILL.
because they do not say the Lords
prayer every time they set log?
The common school was not built
for thepurpose ofteaching theology,
but for the purpose of waking up
the faculties in men, to teach them
how to use them. i hold that the
common schools of America ought
to be the best schools that can be
Ill. 80 bl;ohaI - sbo o1,,