Arizona weekly citizen., 1883-03-18
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND WHAT THEY SHOULD
 TEACH.

FObLLO SCHOOLS AND WHAT THEY SEOUL
 TEACH.
 A committee of the Citizens Associa.
 tion of Chicago complained Of the con-
 plete absence of religious training. in ihe
 slight attention paid to physical train
 ing and the lack of industrial training
 in the public schools To remedy these
 omissions the curriculum of the schools
 must be enlarged; this involves longer
 hours, or more crOwdIng, or the omission
 of some of the branches now taught.
 Few will approve of prolonging school hours which are for most children quite
 long enough. To add tO the course of
 study would be almost impossible, so
 much has already been crowded into 1t;
 in fact, the chief complaint of the-public
 schools fl to-day is that they teach too
 many things. To give the pupils in
 structions iD morals and religion, to train them in gymnastics and to afford them an industrial education, a good part of the studies that now occupy their attention must be omitted. In the grammar schools of the country, par ticularly in the lower grades, there is
 little besides the common English branches which the schools must teach if they teach anything. It is idle, there fore to talk of teaching the pupils trades. ethics and athletics, unless the time be given these, and the way the time IS to be obtained, be specified. There are grave doubts in the minds of many peo- pie as to the justice of teaching anything in our public schools outside of the or dinary branches of reading, writing, spelling, grammar and geography. Our public school system Is one of the best in the world, but We question the justice of teaching beyond these common aud necessary branches, if We take into con- sIderation that a large proportion of the funds supplied to public schools are supplied by those who patronize the schools the least. The committee re- ferred to has discover that the public schools cannot be relied on for the moral and religious education of child Ten. But a great L1ny parents do not believe n religion at all. There are parents who believe in some kind of re- IgIon, but have not the highest opin- | ion of the Mosaic system, and would | rather have their children taught the revised statutes Of the common law than | the ten commandments. Our free form |. of government allows this. All classes | and every religious sect must pay tax to support our public schools. Is it just then, to force them to have their child Ten taught religion that is not accept able to lhem, and winch Is contrary to their belief?
 Morality is not to be taught like arithmetic. The man who knows how to add correctly will never add inc, r. rectly, but man may know all about the way in which he should walk and persis.-n'ly Wax n aa another way. Childrea may be taught at school what they ought [ do, they may be told what Is good and what Is evil, but their see ing evil only to shun it, and their seeing the good in all things, and IntelIigently selzing upon and retaining 1t, depends not upon what they know. but on what they like: that 1t is not matter of knowledge but a matter of character. and in the formatiou of character what can be done at school Is only mere trihe as compared with what IS done at home.
 The vital defects in the report of the Citizens Association Con- mittee is that it assumes what neither Is fact nor can become a fact-that the state, through its agencies takes possession of all the children and brings them up. That is an idea borrowed from Pelatos Republic" It may be an excellent one, but 1t involves the advent of children into this world under totally different from those that exist here, UT buaL nave tAlHbcu III any GlflAlItu So long as children are born into families in families they will be brought up; under the management of their parents will they be by far the greater portion of the time, and their characters will be what their parents make them. Some years ago the public schools of Cincinnati excluded the Bible from the schools, not because they were opposed to its teachings, but be- cause it was not the proper place to teach it. The religions training of child must be made at home, or in our Sunday Schools. Morality should be taught everywhere, but the religions training of a child must be made at home 4 Jew will be Jew, even after years of training ID our public schools, ! Protestant Protestant, and a Catho- ic a Catholic.