Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-04-05

can never be considered as a stranger in
the State nor as an interloper, nor as one
interfering.
There are scores of young men born and
raised in Wisconsin, unable to read the
Constitution, laws or proclamations OF the
Government of the State, because they
have not been taught to read the English
tongue, but have been confined to the Ger
man. The State, through the supreme
authority, the representative body, the
law-making power, has resolved that such
facts are neither creditable nor safe for the
State. 1t has resolved that good citizen
ship demands some degree of intelligence,
| and it is best attained through education
in the English tongue in few branches,
| reading, writing, arithmetic and United
States History. All opposition to such
wise regulation and requirement is born of
clannishness, prejudice and enmity to free
! government; it is abuse OF liberty, and
tends to the overthrow of ali power in the
State, and the substitution for law of the
will of the individual, and exercise under
it unrestrained, is anarchy pure and sim
pie.
The school system is not born OF pater-
nalism it is simply means to the great
est good OF the community, proved by
experience and approved by the wisest of
the race. The assault upon the Bennett
school law is not in furtherence of public
good, but in the interest of narrow, I'M
American, illiberal and foreign doctrines,
that carried to their full and logical con-
clusion would wreck free government and
upturn the substructural principles of the
Republic.
| Who shall say that the friends of thelaw
have not made the best argument 1t
has indeed come to pretty pass, when in
the blaze of the enlightenment of the age
and in the midst of the trlumphs of lib
| erty in America, the American flag can
not be raised in PENNSYLVANIA without
arousing the passions of mob of ignorant
foreigners, and the English language can
not be taught to the children of Wisconsin
without drawing the fire of shrewd, calcu-
lating and designing foreigners who are
half-made citizens, and hold the land that
shelters them in such contempt that they
will not teach their children to read its
laws in the language of the nation. 1t
begins to look as if indeed the time ap-
proaches when it will be necessary to
apologize for being native born, and not
the ofishoots and exiles of foreign mon
archical community.
Since the agitation over the school law
in Wisconsin promises to attract so much
general attention, statistics of the schools
of the chief city OF the State, Milwau-
kee, will prove of interest
The public school enrolment is 26526:
the average attendance, 1901 In par
ochial and private schools, 16,309 children
are enrolled. OF these, 1922 attend Cath
olic, and 6066 Lutheran schools, while
1851 are in charitable and other private
schools. There are 81 public schools in
the city, and 81 Others In the public
schools are Asa teachers, and in the pri-
vate and parochial schools 321. As an
evidence Of the German character of the
city, the statistics show that there are 5S
teachers of German employed in the pub
lie schools, who instruct 1929 pupils
in that tongue, Of whom II 1884 are of
German parentage. The Catholics have
Is strictly parochial schools, six are Eng
Gsh, six German, FIVE Polish and one Bo-
hemian. Two-thirds of the pupils in the
Catholic schools are in those not using the
English language, and some hundred more
use the Polish than the English Catholic
schools.
| The Lutherans have % parochial schools
with 1854 pupils. Of these, 81 schools
are German, and one Bohemian. Not one
Of them is an English speaking or teach
ing school. 1t is asserted by the press of
the city that the German schools are as
thoroughly and radically German as those
of Berlin, the Polish as Polish as those Of
Warsaw, the Bohemian as Bohemian as
those of Prague.
1t is undeniable that all the children in
the non-English schools are being in
structed at such disadvantage, as Amer
lean citizens, as must be reflected in the
State government these youths will be
called upon to administer. While it is
conceded that the foreign-born of Mil
waukee have right to teach their chill
dren the tongues of their Fatherlands,
there can be but one just Judgment con-
corning their resistance to the demand of
the State, that they shall also be taught
sufficient of the English language to quail
ify them to read the laws of the land. To
oppose that judgment is to exhibit de-
gree of selfshness, and manifest lack of
patriotism that bodies no good to American
institutions.
If the foreign-born citizens, and the fol-
lowers of religious faiths, succeed in their
| announced determination not to teach the
English tongue, their next demand will be
for division of the public school fund, on
the ground that their private schools re-
lieve. the State and city of large share of
the burden of the educational system of
the State and the city. If ever that de-
mand is granted the common school sys-
tenn, in Milwaukee at least, will come to
an inglorious end, for such division will
mean the disruption, eventually, of the
entire scheme of public school education.
We cannot believe that the citizen edu-
Gated in American schools, who is unable