Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1882-11-10
EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
Conducted by J. H. Terry, Principal Of Mineral
Point Public Shoots.
Herbert Spencer on Education as
Related to American Institutions.

Herbert Spencer on Education as
Related to American Institutions.
The indefatigable newspaper re-
porter, after much waiting and many
efforts since Herbert Spencer's ar
rival in this country, has at last got
at him. and the extract given below
contains the gist of his latest deliv-
erance on the subject of popular
education:
but will not education and the
diffusion of political knowledge fit
men for free institutions?
"No. 1t is essentially question
of character, and only in a second
airy degree question of knowledge.
But for the universal delusion about
education as panacea for political
evils, this would have been made
sufficiently clear by the evidence
daily disclosed in your papers. Are
not the men who control your Fed
eral State, and municipal organiza-
tions-who manipulate your eau
euses and conventions, and run your
partisan campaigns-all educated
men? And has their education
prevented them from engaging in,
or permitting, or condoning, the
briberies, lobbyings, and other cor
rupt methods which vitiate the
actions of your administrations
Perhaps party newspapers exager-
ate these things, but what am | to
make of the testimony of your civil
service reformers of all par
ties? If | understand the matter
Alright, they are attacking, as vicious
and dangerous, system which has
grown up under the natural sponta-
neous working of your free institu-
tions-are exposing vices which
education has proved powerless to
prevent"
COT course, ambitious and un-
sclupulous men will secure the
offices, and education will aid them
in their selfish purposes; but would
not those purposes be thwarted and
better government be secured by
raising the standard of knowledge
among the people at large ?"
Very little. The current theory
is that if the young are taught what
is right, and the reasons why it is
right, they will do right when they
grow up. But, considering what re-
hgious teachers have been doing
these 1000 years, it seems to me
that all history is against the con-
clusion, as much as in the conduct
of these well-educated citizens l
have referred to; and | do not see
why you expect better results among
the masses. Personal interest will
sway the men in the ranks as they
sway the men above them, and the
education which fails to make the
last consult the public good rather
than private good will fail to make
the first do it. The benefits of po-
litical purity are so general and
remote, and the profit to each indi-
vidual so inconspicuous, that the
common citizen, educate him as you
like, will habitually occupy himself
with his personal affairs, and hold
it not worth his while to fight
against each abuse as soon as it
appears. Not lack of information,
but lack of certain moral sentiments,
is the root OF the evil. "
The New York Evening Post COM
ments as follows on this
Mr.. Spencer's observations on
the universal delusion as to ed
ucation as panacea for political
evils" are not marked by his usual
accuracy of expression. We doubt
very much whether the most de-
luded admirer of education as
political agent has ever considered
it panacea, or anything more
than a help in raising the stand
ard of morality. That it dinin-
ishes crimes of violence, there is,
we think, no question, and that
it also increases the restraining
power of public opinion with re-
gard to other crimes, there is just
as little. There is no timid owner
of property or industrious man who
would not sooner settle in we'll
tuught than in an ignorant COM
munity, if for no other reason, for
the very important one that the
force of persuasion-or the results
which may be achieved by reason
ing-are vastly greater in the for
mer than in the latter. Moreover,
in judging any improving agency,
we are bound to take into account
the milieu in which it works.
Every such agency creates its own
dangers, and education is no ex-
ception to the rule. Navigation
increases the number of deaths by
drowning, railroads the number
of deaths by crushing and bruising,
Education, too, increases the amount
of certain kinds of knavery, which
in an ignorant community would
be rare or unknown. But, like
the police, a large part of its work
must be preventive, and therefore
unseen.
Col, F. w. Parker, the teacher
whose efforts gave such notoriety
to the Quincy schools year or
two ago, and who is at present a
supervisor of public schools in
Boston, has been engaged to take
charge of the Cook County Nor
NAL School at Chicago.
The prospectus is just out for a
new journal of education to be
published in Boston, under the
title of The American Teacher.
Its pages viii discuss everything
pertaining to education. from the