St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-01-22
Education and the Figure Crank.

EHuucatiOn ana the FISufo frank.
To the Editor Of the Globe.
With your permission / should like to
discuss a few ideas contained in your
editorial on 1.-The Figure Crank" or
suggested by it.
You say: "As figures have the G.
Washington quality as to veracity, they
disturb theories which everybody knows
to be solid and immutable. For in-
stance. some impertiuent StatiStician
finds that i'll the last federal census de-
cade, with an Increase of 80 per cent in
population. and decrease of relative
illiteracy there was an increase of crime
of 81 per cent"
Now, evidently, one of the theories
which these figures disturb is the one
that education develops honesty and
good citizenship. But it is poor cOnso-
latiOn when such an immutable princi-
pie is apparently shaken by statistics to
call the statistician ''impertinent," and
''anuisance," or ito doubt the value"
of his figures as long as there
is only too much reason for be-
lieving them true. But why, would
ask, should such figures. even if true,
dis urb the aforesaid theory in regard
to the effects Of education? Would it
not be more reasonable to conclude that
there was something wrong. in the kind
OF education given, and to investigate
the facts? Ii must not be forgotten that
our educational system is still in the
experimental stage. and to insure its
efficiency it must be vigorously judged
by it's fruit. An examination of the
principles reveals the fact that in the
highest sense of the word it does not
educate at all, or at least, only half
educateS, being confined by law solely
to the instruction of the intellectual
part of man, leaving the formation of
character and conscience entirely out of
its curriculum. Now the highest minds
of the age are unanimous in the asser-
ton that mere secular instruction has
no tendency to make men better. "lf
l am knave or fool" says Huxley,
teaching me to read and write will not
make me less of either one or the other"
"We have no evidence" observes Her.
bert Spencer, 'that education, as COM
monty understood, is a preventive of
crime"
The criminal statistics you refer to,
then, should not in the slightest degree
disturb" the 'immutable theoryo of
true education. The wonder is rather
that they are not yet more appalling
than they are in view of the kind of
purely intellectual instruction that our
state schools are doing out in such
enormous doses. And this brings us
face to face with your very pertinent
question, ''If education (such as we are
getting) is not to develop honesty and
good citizenship, what business has the
state to tax people to promote it?'
How, If ever, our present system can
be reconstructed so as to secure the re-
suits intended. all are not agreed. Its
baneful effects are becoming so appar-
ent, however, that the following opin-
ion. recently expressed by the editor of
the New York Journal of Commerce, is
gaining ground every day: at is a
mere question of time when the state
must relinQuish its control of popular
education. as it already has of the sup
port of public worship" '"Fhe
schools would at once assume higher
character, and the young of all classes
be much better educated IN all that this
word implies, If the state would sur
render the task and leave it to the care
of those who are so deeply Interested in
the result" AMERICAN CITIZEN.
Minneapolis, Jan. 20.