St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-06-23
OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
The System, Not the Princi-
pie Of Education, Under
Discussion,
From a Purely Practical and
Non-Sectarian Stand
point.
Can the Political State Teach
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Opinion.
Second Radical Defect in the
Present System Pointed
Out.

VI.
In my last article l traced the first
great cause of the 'failure of our pub
lie school system" to the unnatural, I'M
reasonable and wholly unjustifiable
usurpation by the state of the right of
parents to control and direct the edu-
cation of their children. The second, l
apprehend, will be found in the bun
Cling. unskillful and almost ludicrOus
attempts of the state to exercise the OBJ
normal power thus usurped. To put
the matter in very homely phrase: IA
goose makes much better mother for a
gosling than the best-intentioned cOw!'
The state attempts to do for each
child, through political agencies, what
can be done by no one else in the wide
world excepting only its own parents.
What physician would think of pre-
scribing for child till he had first
learned from its mother the symptoms
of the disease as detected by her
watchful eye? Is the political state bet
ter able than physician to prescribe
the proper training for child without
first acquiring from its parents the
knowledge of its character, habits and
temperament, which only they can
fully know and understand? But we
have already seen that the judgment of
the parent is totally discarded by the
present system, and, as the editor of the
Minneapolis Tribune recently expressed
it
1--WE take the brains of children,
which hold the intellectual powers that
Ill ~ oo,.f1, IL,
strength and effect, and. without any
study into their separate peculiaritles,
heap them in mass and subject them
to the same rolling and grinding pro-
cess. We are careful of our seeds and
roots in the garden, but we plant our
human jessamines, oaks and cabbages
in a row, and preserve and water them
all alike"
But let us see where the state princi-
pally fails in its efforts to exercise the
duties of parents towards their children
in the matter of education.
Man, the nOblest work of God, may
be said to consist of three parts or
classes of faculties, viz, the body, or
physical part; the mind. or intellectual
part, and the soul. conscience, or moral
part. Now it was evidently intended
by Nature, or the Creator, that these
three parts should be exercised, and
exercised in harmony. 1t is, therefore,
necessary that each should be devel-
oped or educated in harmony, without
in the least confusing or sacrificing
one to the other. The develop
ment of any one Of the parts
to the exclusion of the others
produces an anomaly, a hybrid, mon
strosity. Thus the exclusive education
of the body makes the brutal prize
fighter; the exclusive education of the
intellect makes the lean, lank philos-
opher, OF the cunning, heartless Shy
lock; the exclusive education of the
soul or conscience makes-well, either
three parts of man the soul or con-
science is unquestionabIy the noblest,
for it alone is fitted to guide and control
the others, and without it mans actions
are not human, but merely those of all
animal OF machine.
Now. it is precisely this moral part of
man which, 1 claim, under our federal
and state constitu ions, the state cannot
and dare not attempt to educate.
To be sure, the school laws of most of
the states contain some such injunctiOnS
as the following from section 1902 of the
State School Laws of California: lit
shall he the duty of all teachers to en-
deavor to impress upon the minds of
the pupils the principles of morality"
But just here the question at once
arises, what is morality?' or ''What
kind of morality must be taught?' Will
any one point out in the history of the
world any form of morality that did not
rest on some form of religion as
it's foundation? Certainly there is
no such thing as Christian morality
distinct from the Christian religion,
for the founder of Christianity Himself
joined morality and religion by an in
dissoluble bond, which no man can tear
asunder. The state, therefore, cannot
teach Christian morality because it
cannot legally teach the Christian re-
ligion. We hear good deal about the
broad principles of common morality"
and, unquestionably. there is such a
thing as natural religion" or ethics.
But did not ali the ancident nations Of
the world possess that kind of morality
as fully as we do? And what was their
moral condition? Would we be salts
fed to live under similar con-
ditions to-day? Our modern civilization
is not Roman, Greecian or Egyptian,
but emphatically Christian civiliza-
ton. The immortal Washington. the
father of his county, struck the key
note when he said: ''I1et us with eau
ton indulge the supposition that moral
ity can be maintained without re-
ligion." And Auberon Herbert de-
clares: "Whoever fairly faces the ques-
ton must admit that the same set of
arguments which condemns a national
religion also condemns national
system of education"
The ex-assiStant attorney general of
the United States has thus fOrcibly ex-
pressed this truth: "The true and
proper business of the state is not to
teach nor to pay for teaching either
morality or religion, but to foster and
encourage the teaching of both, by care
fully and scrupulously guarding and
protecting the equal rights of all citi-
Zens to worship God and to educate
their children according to the dictates
of their own conscience. We say, let
to pay for the teaching of morality or
religion, because it is impossible to teach
a state morality without teaching a
state religion, and it is impossible to
teach a state religion without the de-
struction of the religious liberty OF the
citizen"
1t is practically impossible, then, to
teach morality without at the same time
teaching some form or other of religion;
but our American constitution has for
ever guaranteed religious freedom to
all our citizens, and prohibited making
any lawrespecting the establishment of
religion; therefore. the state cannot
teach any kind of morality.
We have already seen that the educa-
ton of any one of the three classes of
faculties in man to the exclusion of the
others must produce an anomaly, but it
is difficult for those of us who have en-
joyed the advantages of different
kind of education to realize the utterly
helpless, hopeless, desolaJe condition
OF our children who have passed
through complete course Of
public school education. Their bodies,
NAV nave hppn cared for and their in.