The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1884-04-19
A PLEA FOR FREE SCHOOLS.

The pride and ambition that is innately
| contained in the breast of man is visible in
nearly every circumstance and relation of
life. Itsmost original form is to be found
i'll self love or egotism which exists very
generally in the minds of mankind. Next
is the pride of family, then church pride,
state pride, national pride. We CON-
pare each year with its predecessor and
proudly boast of its improvement, so de-
cade is compared with decade and century
with century. This nineteenth century is
peculiarly boastiug age. Not a paper do
we see that is not glorying over the superb
ority of the present. And we Americans
point with pride to our great impress on
the worlds material progress. The bridge
across the Mississippi at St. Louis is cited
as a wonder of engineering skill. The tele-
phone and phonograph, the telegraph and
ocean cable are the marvellous modern and
American discoveries to adapt for mans
use the magnetism and electricity which
we're but idle theories of the country before
US. But the grandest of modern applica-
tions of truth is rarely the subject of so
much eulogy as the examples we have in
stanced above. OF all the improvements
of this nineteenth century our successors
will most thank US for the system of free
public schools which we ef this century have
for the first time applied with anything like
generalness to the masses.
But it is true in this as in the forces of
electricity and magnetism that we can only
boast of having perfected and utilized
principles known before our time. The in
telligent historian searches for the causes
that produce events and the originators
who establish new and peculiar relations.
It is the fashion to-day to ridicule the stern
ness of the Puritans of New England in the
seventeenth and preceding centuries. But
when the unwritten history of the Ameri-
! who seeks the causes and origins of events,
then will our Indebtedness to their inhu-
ence come to be fully understood. Along
with their churches and before their homes
LliC l. ul ItdA sCttAClS VI 1hSN 4LuSlauu ouA1t
the school-house. Oh! wonderful people
who, after religion, placed the importance
of education. To this same stock We are
! indebted for the primary origin of the free
school idea. The city of Hartford, Conn,
is due the honor of having originated the
free school principle, at least to have first
applied the principle, which was done in
the year 1642. In the year 1913 the Com
monwealth of Massachusetts passed gen.
eral school law for the entire State. The
| principle thus originated obtained no wide
extension until after the beginning of the
present century. To-day this principle has
obtained recognition and produced prac-
teal results in the whole of this United
States Government, and has been adopted
and carried to even higher perfection on
the continent of Europe where the free
public schools of Germany and France are
the wonder of the age.
| The time for cavil and opposition to the
free public schools has happily gone by;
| only here and there are found a few pecu-
liars who dissent from their utility and ex-
pediency. That education is better for all
will not be denied. In this age of increas-
! ing luxury many more classes of laborers
| are needed than farmers, fishers and stock
raisers who constitute almost the whole
| class of the population that actually pro-
duces food products. AS the population in
creases more and more the ratio of those
who are engaged in these, so to speak more
I primitive occupations, will become smaller.
Comparing the different populations of the
/ earth, we find races like the Arabs whose
Oulv employmeut--eXcsDt occasional rob-