Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-03-30
An Undeveloped People.
BY THOMAS CALLAHAN.


In order to the developments Of peo-
pie 1t is necessary that the elevating influences
| shall reach all classes, and shall act slowly,
40 that the motion can be communicated to
every particle of thesmass, so that all can
move together, otherwise society instead of
arising will pull to pieces. In every attempt
| at true development the evils to be remedied
must be traced to their existence in the indi
vidual. There can be no corporation morality
aside from the morality Of the individuals
! composing the corporation. This fact fur
nshcs the key to the whole matter of devel-
ooment, as well as indicates the means to be
employed, and narrows down the selection
of means to those that Will most effectually
| control the individual.
Those means are embraced in two great
classes, called the Church and the State.
Through misapprehension of the facts in
the ease, those two classes have too often be-
| come antagonistic, or at least have failed to
cooperate. TO such an extent has this gone
that men are compelled to choose between
| them, and with a tolerably thorough knowl-
edge of both in their present relations to the
individual, the writer decides that the best
show for true development is by the agencies
| established by the State, and especially
through the common school.
In Southeast Missouriethe teachers desk
to- day stands above the pulpit. The writer
| has been i'll both, and can give more than one
reason for his view. In the first place, take
| the common school teachers as q class, and
the clergy of Southeast Missouri as a class,
and subject them to competitive eXamina-
| h, oil
derlie all teaching, and the teachers will
prove to be the better scholars. Take the
| community on an average and the teacher
has nothing to fear from Il comparison in re-
gard to moral power. This state of affairs
| arises in these different classes of agencies
Where the Church is anything at ALL it is
| simply "a raiser of taXes,' and a mans
church standing depends mainly on his bank
| account. And furthermore everything is
| done by boards and associations, regardless
| of the idea that union is not strength when
united effort is made plea for release from
| the obligation to individual eXariion. Anoth-
er difficulty is that the Church has become
| an organization of magnificent distances. A
Southeast MissOurian must take care of him.
self, but the Chinese, the japanese, the Hin
tuS, Tue Sotltu sea
must be saved regardless of expense, and
practically the principal use which the Church
proposes to make OF u, is to procure the
means to save somebody else, aud as result
of this course the Church has ceased to be
power for & ood, not having the keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven.
But the State as truly rs the Church is an
ordinance of God, and If either of them be-
comes inefficient through human mismanage
meut He rallies on the other to correct the
abuse, and when both fail, as they sometimes
will in great crisis, He organizes a new
departure BY collecting whatever OF good
there is in both of them, and placing it in
new arrangement. lie is doing this now in
Southeast MisSouri; and as the balance of
power was on the side of the State the new
departure is leading out throughthe common
school, and this fact is being recognized all
over the nation, and consequently the COM
mon school is growing in Importance in
popular estimation, and is being simplfed
and made more uniform all over the coun-
trr.
One great advantage of the common school
over the Church is the former operates right
here. The great bulk of the funds is expend-
ed on the ground where it is collected. The
taxpayer at the Annual Meeting has the right
to say how much shall be assessed, and how
it shall be expended. He is under obligation
to visit the school, and see how things are
going; and so the benefit accrues directly to
those who bear the expense. Thus the COM
mon school is placed in the hands of and di-
rectly down among those on whom it is
intended to operate; so that il they be wise
they shall be wise for themselves, but if they
scorn they alone shall bear it.
Itremains now to notice the objective points
in popular development. And here permit
two general remarks. Those points must be |
movable, So as to be raised higher from time
to time, as occasion may require. And they
must be kept little above the average plane
of the people, but within reach of any one.
For Southeast Missouri the first objective
point in the education OF the people, is TO
make the country self-sustaining, especially
in regard tofood and clothing. An effort has
already been made TO show the agricultural