The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1883-11-23

to spare. 1T is pleasant to listen to an
appropriate sermon on thanksgiving
day, but far more pleasurable for the
truly benevolent to administer to the
wants of some poor and needy family.
EDUCATIONAL REFORM-FIRSl'
FREE SCHOOL IN WISCONSIN,.
The subject of educational reform is
receiving increased attention and gam
ing new adherents. The friends of the
movement have been looking for some
expression from the leading educators
in this State. The Superintendent Of
Public instruction has doubtless ere
this arrived at an intelligent conclusion
as to the desirability of the advanced
step in educational reform. As the
head of our public school interests in
the State, his voice would have weight
in calling attention to the new depar-
ture for consideration, although the
time may not have come to recommend
official action. The subject is compare
lively new, and as yet is but imper-
fectly understood by the peoplein gen.
eral. Besides, there is a tendency to
adhere to old ways and methods, and
to regard new departures with suspi-
cion and distruSt. So it has been in
all reforms during past ages; those
who have taken the initiatory step for
ward have been regarded as mere the
orists and Improbable agitators. But
evidences are beginning to accumulate
that the. now agitated educational re-
form in school learning is based on
common sense, and is altogether prac-
ticable. What is now urged is not
alone theoretical but capable of demon
stration. The following paragraph
taken from the Chicago Eoe1aiag Jour
nal, to which columns of like extracts
might be given, illustrates what the
reform is intended to accomplish:
The st. Louis Manual Training
School, the success of which has done
more toward showing the practicable
| ity of the proposed reform than has
the most persuasive and logical argu-
ments, is doing better work than ever,
the pupils demonstrating by their pro-
| greSs in both manual and mental knoWl-
ledge that the hands and the head
make best progress when aiding each
other
1t will be recollected that in the early
history of education in Wisconsin,
when the subject Of free schools first
began to be suggested, it met with de-
cided disfavor. The TELEGRAPH was
among the earliest to advocate the es-
Establishment of free schools. In the
sessions of the Territorial Legislature
in the years 1874, 1S45.and, 1916, mem
Der of the legislature from this county
labored to have free schools established
in Wisconsin, in place of the cumber-
some rate bill plan which was then in
force, but the idea of such system of
schools for the west was treated as Wis
ionary and impracticable. After long
efforts an act was obtained from the
Legislature to allow the people within
the corporate limits of the village of
Southport (now Kenosha) to try the
experiment of free schools, levying the
expenses on the taxable property of the
village. The members of the legisla-
ture, with but few exceptions, express
ed want of confidence in the proposed
free school, but as the friends at Ke-
nosha were so anxious to test the plan,
it was consented to, and the bill passed.
There was at that period of our history
a strong opposition to the system of
free schools in the west, but the effort
to establish one at Kenosha, after a
protracted struggle, succeeded and
| proved a success. This was the first
free school established in Wisconsin
1t is reasonable to conclude that this
satisfactory result of the free school
movement at Kenosha had an infu
ence in other parts of the state in favor
| of the system; but the progress in that
direction was not rapid. The opinion
has been expressed, if the question Of
free schools had been made a distinc
proposition in 1S4S, when the constitu
ton for the state of Wisconsin was
submitted to the people, it would have
failed Of adoption. This may SOUND
strange, but many who were deeply in
terested in that provision of the con
stitution at the time so believed. Th,
provision for an elective judiciary en-
crossed the attention of the people
much to the exclusion of other inter
ests.
OHIO AND ALL.
THE OPINION OF AN OLD AND Elk
PERIENCED POLITICAL EDITOT
BACKED UP BY PRESIDENT, CABI
NET AND GOVERNORS.
The B. so. Red Book has becom,