Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-02-03
0be Canfaster 1ntellioenfer
LANCASTER, FEBRUARY 8, 1876.
The Orphans' School.

The Columbia Spy. no doubt, thinks it
has disposed of the question of the state
soldiers orphans schools when it intimates
that the editors who oppose their con-
tinuance-twenty years after the close of
the war and when all the real soldiers
orphans have grown to be adults-have not
been soldiers themselves or, being able to
educate their own children, cannot under
stand why "poor, crippled or disabled
soldiers cannot do the same" We fail to
see the relevancy of its argument.
As everybody knows, the experiment of
educating the soldiers orphans, in which
we believe Pennsylvania was alone, was
not intended originally to embrace within
its benefits any other children than those of
soldiers whose lives had been lost in the
service of their country during the war
their number was easy of ascertainment
and was certain in the nature of things to
diminish as time went on.
The children who now make up the in
mates of these school have b en- born be-
tween 1869 and 1S79-none within four
years after the war closed, and some four
teen years after that event. For the fam
lilies of ''poor, crippled or disabled sol
diers'' who chose to rear them in this
period, the state was under no such obi
CATION as with regard to those who We're
left destitute by the loss of their fathers
during the war. Since its close the federal
government, to whom their service was
rendered, has made liberal and ample provi-
f.r Io1 lnI
and the state, we maintain, is under no
greater obligation to raise their families,
born years after the war closed, than to
feed, clothe, educate and support up to the
age of 16 the children of any other unfor-
tunate class of its citizens.
The Spy does not strengthen its argu-
ment by asking, f" Is it not better to edu-
cate and maintain the soldiers orphans at
the expense of the state, and the friendess
children at the expense of the county, than
to have them fill our iails and poorhouses,
or lead lives of destitution and want, and
grow up TO be ignorant and depraved men
and women - In the first place it does
not follow that orphan children not main.
tanned at the expense of the state
grow up to fill our jails and poor
houses ~ or that those who have the
benefit of this system are in after life ex-
empt from destitution and depravity. No
general principle can he deduced from the
fact that Abraham Lincoln and James A.
Garfield were educated in the self-reliant
school of poverty for careers that ended in
the presidency, nor can the unfailing pro-
lection Of the soldiers orphans system of
education be proved by the fact that the
Buzzard boys were conspicuous benef-
Charles of it.
Again the Children's Home of this city
and county is organized upon a different
basis from that of the soldiers orphans,
schools. 1t may be "A wise and proper thing
to have all neglected and needy children
housed, fed, clothed and educated at the
public expense, until good private homes
can be found for them, after the system
practiced in our Home We doubt if
many counties are yet prepared to under
take that work but, if so, let it be done by
the counties, just as their other eee-
mosynary institutions are managed, and let
there be no discrimination in favor Of chill
dren whose fathers happened to serve in
the army ten or twenty years before they
were born.
For reasons akin to these we trust an
other suggestion of the Spy will receive no
countenance, viz: that an effort be made
to secure from the state aid for our Chill
dren's Home. The grants of state aid for
local and private institutions need to be
opposed and curtailed at every point, and
we trust our representatives will not COM
promise their position on this subject.
Lancaster county can pay its own way and
support its own institutions if more money
is needed to run its " Home" let the nee
essary legislation be procured to permit
the commissioners to give it, but let
us ask the state for nothing. Our
members and senator's will be in
all the better position to oppose the whole
vicious system of state aid for private
charities unless they bring themselves under
the direction and control of the state au-
thorities. When the support of our Home
was shouldered upon the county its manage
ment passed to appointees of the court,
and it has been exceptionally creditable,
economical and successful. Let the other
private charities of the state, which want
the state to support them wholly or in part,
do likewise. Who pays should govern. But
divided responsibility brings trouble.
No Traitors Now!