Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-08
EDUCATION OF THE CITIZEN.
STUDY OF CURRENT TOPICS AS A
FEATURE OF SCHOOL WORK.
Political Education of the Enthusiastic
Campaign When Real Issues
Are at Stake.

He lTubn 10 ludt oO1lSthAiA6 1AAOAN sAAHA-
a catechism study of the detail of the
method of our Government is needed,
saws the Rev. DIR. Edward Everett Hale in
the Cosmopolitan. And even such study
of detail will never be attempted heartily,
unless the enthusiasm of the people-men,
women and children-is behind the study.
1t is wisely said that we have no such
political education as is given by one en-
thusiastic campaign, when the great body
of men are enough excited to attend not
simply to caucus plans, but to the
principles at issue in the discussion. If by
Luck there are no principles at issue, a
- ! election teach nothing, and,
o"I - T. h.,o they sicken thoughtful
people of the whole affalI. a.
In canvass of enthusiasm Inc news
paper press and the stump are - 'nelr
best, and become important educators OF
the mind and conscience of the people.
And it would be we'll if the commence
ment orators who are little apt to think
nothing is learned excepting from .ext-
book or in a recitation-room, would pay
more attention to the great seminars" in
which all the people is taught SO much by
the great debates in its own popular meet
ing or in the street-car discussions
of an intelligent canvass. The great "sil-
yer" debate in Congress in Grants admin
lstration was an education Of this whole
country in finance The great tariff de-
bates in Congress are an education to the
country. 1t is the fashion to ridicule such
discussions-to say that they are made for
buncombe, and that the members of Con-
gress do not listen to them. Grant that
this is true; still the result is series of
studies made with great care by picked
men, printed in great numbers and scat
tered through the whole country for the
reading of men and women who are not
fools.
Where was even university which pre-
tended to take in hand in such fashion the
enlightenment of the voters among sixty
million of people? The same power for
education shows itself in town meeting
convened for day to direct the enterprises
of the town, perhaps, for whole year. In
the face-to-face discussion-on which de-
ponds the appropriations for this road, for
that school-house, the licenses of peddlers
or the muzzling of dogs-the speakers are
speaking to convince. They want to carry
the town with them. Now the intelligent
boy who listens to the eager give and take
of this discussion enters into the organ
lied life of the community in which he is.
The rival interests of this district and that
become realities to him.
The characters and ambitions of the
leaders of the town appeal to his sympa-
thies or arouse his antipathies And-in
day of such discipline-such boy comes
to take kind of interest in government,
in administration and social order, which
no school-book can be expected to give to
him. l can well understand the wish of
intelligent gentlemen in the Middle and
Western States who have attempted to In
troduce "towu meetings" in the machinery
of their local politics. You may not be
able to change the makeup of your insti-
tutions so that the town shall vote in
"open meeting" whether the granite for
the crosswalk shall be taken from the
north ledge or from the south quarry.
A pity that you cannoti But it
would seem as if you might create
an occasional meeting CT ''the town"
for solid discussion of its essential
interests, and that you might be able to
find what the Quakers would call "the
sense of the meeting" And tits quite GER
tain that if you did find that, all super
visors or overseerS of whatever name or
station would very promptly obey. The
Sons of the Revolution, a patriotic society
,r;thsr, ha lort
years, has very heartily in view the funda-
mental education of the voter in the
principles of the American system. And
the leaders of the society seem to under
stand that, as l have said, enthusiasm
for the country and its prosperity is essen
tial if our systems of education are worth
a straw.
The society devotes itself to encourag-
ing all historical celebrations which will
quicken attention to the causes OF the
nations success. And in particular its
active members have tried to give dignity
and effect to the celebration of the Fourth
of July. In that case the holiday fortu-
nately exists by national instinct which
has the confirmation of the habits of a
century. We have not to create an occa-
sion. 1t is the business of such men as
the Sons of the Revolution to see that
the holiday is not degraded into mere
burlesque of the fathers of America, or,
what is worse, drunken revel of people
who have no work on that day, and for
whom, alas there is hardly any play.
STUDY OF CURRENT TOPICS IN THE
SCHOOLS.
Evan Mcpherson, of Owensborough,
Ky, in the course of paper on "The
Study of Current Topics as a Feature OF
School, Academic and College Education, y
contributed to Public Opinion, September
18th, says:
For the purposes of this discussion, we
may divide the mental potentialities of a
normal child into two classes-those which
naturally develop under education into
specific capacities for different kinds of re-
munerative work, and those which render
the child capable of becoming a fit men,
Der of civilized society. Those of the
former class, when highly cultivated, en-
able their possessor nowadays to ask high
price for his labor, Just as, in Athens, they
would have enabled his master to ask a
high price for him. We will, therefore,
call them servile abilities. Those of the
latter class are the stuff which education
uses to make the child man and a free
American, as, in Athens, they we're the
germ of the Helene and the free Athe-
MAN. They are liberal abilities, and their
development is liberal education.
Admitting that technical training or
servile education must form large part in
all American educatioH, the efficiency of
such training may be safely intrusted for
its maintenance to the keenness of eompe-
tition in every branch of skilled labor.
What more nearly concerns US, as nation,
is the efficiency of our schools-our public
schools in particular-our academies and
oar colleges as organs of liberal education.
The United States contain some dozen
millions or so of growing boys and girls
who, our political institutions and social
traditions being what they are, must