St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-05-26
The System Viewed From a
Parental and Non-Secta-
rian Standpoint.
1t Is Making Labor Repugnant
to the Youth of
America,
And Sharpening Their Intel
lects for the Commission
Of Crime.
Second of the Series Of Con-
tributed Articles on the
School System.

Several criticisms of my first article
have already appeared in the newSpa-
pers. Much as l should like to reply, /
must decline to do SO at present, for two
reasons: First, my allotted space in the
GLOBE will not allow of it; second, l
should be compelled to anticipate many
things that will appear in their proper
place later in my articles. If my; critics
objections are sound, they will keep.
If they are unwilling to wait, let them
send me their names and addresses,
care of the GLOBE, and will send them
some information on the subject that
may solve their objections.
shall now proceed to the considera-
ton OF the second evil consequence
which our common school system is
charged with producing upon the male
portion of society, namely. that
IT is CREATING A REPUGNANCE FOR
LABOR.
Here, as in my first article, | shall
select nv witnesses from the friends
and admirers of the system, and those
whose connection with it and facilities
for knowing whereof they speak leave
no room to doubt the truth of their as
sertiOns. First, however, | shall state
briefly the law of labor as fOrcibly eX-
pressed by a learned au thOrity already
quoted.
1.-The law of labor is imposed on all, and it
is to a certain degree obligatory at all ages:
reason, and already it has. its work-work
preparatory to life, real work of the heart and
Of the mind. corresponding to the work OF
education and instruction. There is but one
only dispensation from this law OF labor here
on earth-that accorded to lnfirmlty and
grievous illness. In this case the pain of
labor is exchanged for the labor of pain.
There is no other road between these two:
work or suffer. Such is the universal law of
men. This great law obliges some 10 the work
of the hands. it 'obliges others to the work of
the mind. all to the work called for by their
station of life 1t is therefore no eXageratiOn
to say that the man who does not like to
work, is like wheel out of order, only spoilS
assist it binders the other wheels from doing
their duty. Such wheel must, therefore,
be either repaired or taken out and cast
away"
Now, what is the testimony of those
who ought to know i'll regard to the eff
feet of our common school training upon
boys with reference to the law OF labor?
In the last biennial report of Prof.
Carr, late superintendent OF instruction
in California, we find the following
words quoted from the Atlantic Monthly
with approval:
1.-TWO things are especially to be noted in
our popular school education; it usually
leads to no interest in literature or acquaint-
ance with L., nor to any sense OF the value OF
history to modern men-a serious defect: and
its most characteristic and general results
distaste for manual labor. We have some
good schools, of course; but great numbers
of teachers and principals of our high
schools in country places have for several
years explicitly taught their pupils and
urged upon parents the sentiment that in
this country education should raise all who
receive it above the necessity of drudgery;
that there are better ways of making living
than manual labor, and that these higher
ways will be open: to all those who get an
education. All this has resulted in dainty,
effeminate and false view of the world, as
place where only uneducated people need
work hard or engage in toilsome and unat-
tractiQe employment"
Capt. Lees, chief of the San Fran
cisco detective force. man with more
than twenty-siX years experience as a
police and detective officer, and conse-
quently one of the best informed men
in that line of work on the Pacific
coast, when giving his views before the
state prison commission OF California,
and speaking, of course, of the kind of
education we are giving our children,
declared that
Education makes the pick, shovel and
wheelbarrOw repugnant to the American
youth.
My next witness on this subject, the
editor of the San Francisco Argonaut,
one of the leading dailies of that city,
friends and admirers of our public
school system, for he declared editori-
ally, when speaking of the public
schools of America, that ''the one
thing in this world that they (the gates
of helD will not prevail against is the
non-sectarian school house, On various
other occasions, however, he made the
following charges against the system in
the columns of the same ArgOnaut:
s"The whole system of common school edu-
cation as now conducted, is sham and a
fraud, We spend Ill San Francisco over
81, oO0D annually to over,e ed and
graduate of our high schools, both boys and
girls, is, by the system, rendered unfit for the
stationin life to which he or she is born
Again: 1.-THE present educational system
is destructive OF all respect for physical
labor. If the statistics Of our San Francisco
schools could be ascertained, we are conf
dent that the children who have graduated i'll
crime outnumber those who have accepted
life of physical labor We are producing
class of useless boys and Improbable girls.
Ii it were net for our immigrating class in
dustrial vacations would come to a deadlock
The time will come when in America. and in
California, the fact vii: assert itself that our
present school system is destructive of the
class of working people"
Once again this same friend and adj
mirer of our public school system i'll
dignantly declares:
o,v,i1l ycNp odyyno fod
cowardly hangers-ou upon their mothers
apron strings In another generation or
two the American-born will be pitiable,
helpless thing. Our whole commo On free
scope and purpose, or, rather, it has been di-
verted by demagogues, jobbers and place
hunters from its original design"
Reader, do you ask for still further
proof from the friends of the system OH
this subject? Let me refer you, then,
ITO the able editorial in the Minneapolis
Tribune of April 8, ultimO, where,
speaking of the relative number of for
5eigners and native Americans engaged
in the trades and as skilled handicrafts-
men of every kind, it was claimed on
the strength of statistics that
Foreigners, especially the Germans and
Scotch -Irishmen, had shouldered our own
people oat of almost every such occupation.
The American boys could be counted on the
fingers who were learning the trade Of
weaving, in the great wooden and carpet
manufactures. The same story was told in
the cotton mills and at the stocking looms"
y y ''The American boy has not learned
this sure. slow road to comfort aud indie
pendence from his father nor from the
public school system either, l might add.
This is the reason assigned for the phenom-
enon. "Fhe American boy of the class
which does not enter the professions is not
to be found in the trades; partly because he
us barred out of the trades unions, but more
because he does not choose to go into them"
Now let us reflect for moment on
the truth of the maxim with which we
set out, and which is older than Chris
tianity itself, "Train up child in the
Il FL