The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1890-04-25
E COMMON SCHOOLS.
d Their Value TO the Nation
Above the Schools
Not Common.

common schools, in comparison with all
schools not common, consists in the
community lille there awakened and
nourished, which makes up the indis-
pensable foundation of Republican
form of government. In order to vote
justly, and to make good laws, and to
exercise the right influence, one must
have an abiding sense of the character
and needs of the people of whom he
forms an in.eger, and for whom he
lives. In order to have a government
cot the people, for the people, and by
the people, the sovereign unit of the
people, the voter, must understand the
needs of the whole people.
Thus tn, social factor in republican
education stands above all other factors
in Importance. No course of study
however elaborate, no methods or teach.
ers, can instruct pupils in their duties
towards all without the presence in the
school of a representative of all grades
of society and of all phases of religious
and political thought. The common
school is the practice and preparation
school of the Nation; it is the Govern
ment in embryo; the infant republic.
Virtue becomes living and active only
by the constant necessity of, and exer-
else in, virtuous acts. The poor are
not "always WITH high class private
school. Human sympathy, which
springs from mutual understanding,
- lies at the foundation of our Govern
ment, and the garden aud nursery of
that sympathy and understanding is
the common school.
The real danger of all schools not
common, below the college both par
ochial and private, is the segregation of
one class of children in community.
The product Of such segregation is lack
of true OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
Glass building has for its inevitable
sequence, dislike, hate and bigoted in
tolerance, all of which make true
democratic feeling impossible. There
is no danger whatever in the religion
per Sc taught in any private school the
sole danger springs from the lack of
active or applied religion, which con-
sists in the doctrine taught by the
Master: 'Little children love one
another" Convincing proofs of the
effects of segregation of classes are not
far to seek. They I'll the worlds
history.
Indeed. the segregation of classes in
the same community has always been
the one tremendous problem Of all alb
solute monarchies and centralized gov
ernments in the preservation Of their
power. So long as civilized opinion
allowed it, the simple and cheap plan
of keeping the so called lower classes
in utter ignorance produced the desired
result. When Germany, the first nation
to lead, gave her people public cduca-
tion, the difficulty became far greater.
1t was overcome, however, by class
schools, making free kind of pauper
school called "Volks Shule." Thus
the stratifed condition of the people,
upon which alone monarchy can rest,
was perpetuated. Common schools
would change any monarchy on earth
into republic in two generations. A
people can be intellectually educated by
segregation out ofall sympathy for each
other
Moral or true education is only pos
sible in schools where the demands are
constant for the exercise OF every virtue
known to the highest Christian or
ethical life. Our forefathers, with
divine prescience. laid the foundations
of the one system of schools that can in
any way overcome the bigotry, intoler-
ance and hate that have filed human
life with misery, and made history the
record of one long bloody struggle.
No one can cross the line into Can
ada without feeling the sharpest change
in the moral atmosphere. The air is
filled with intense sectarian hate, which
looks and feels like war. Canada has
excellent public schools, but they are
not common. In fatal hour the GOV
eminent divided the school fund be-
tween Catholics and Protestants, and
the result is that the one thing that
children learn with all their hearts to
hate the other side. 1t is readily seen
that republic of Canada is impossible
just so long as this sad state of things
continue. Either the means of Demo-
cratic growth. the conditions for a strong
central power. or internecine war must