Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-31
PRESENT DAY ISSUES.
The President of Amherst College
Gives His Views Upon the
PROPER TRAINING FOR CITIZENS.
Importance of the Features Depending on
the Family and School,
SOME VERY PERTINENT SUGGESTIONS
WRITTEN FOR THE DrspArcu. j

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATCH.1
In country where the people govern, il
is too obvious to need argument that all the
people should know something about gov
ernment. Either there are certain princi-
Piles in which wise men and practical men
are agreed, and such principles, can be
learned and should be taught, or govern
ment is matter of chance to be managed
at haphaEard Does any one believe that
affairs of government are the only occupa-
tion in which rational men engage, where
study and experience of others are of no
value to learners?
Since any male citizen of suitable age
may become a legislator or an ofice-holder,
while every citizen has an appreciable in
fluence upon the political life of his neigh
borhood, it is evident that every citizen of
the United States ought to have some intel
hgent comprehension not only of the essen
tial features of our Government, national,
State, and local or municipal, but also of the
fundamental principles of political ethics,
political economy and political science.
We get our supply of new citizens from
two sources-immigratiou and the growing
up of American children. We are all
keenly alive to the dangers that threaten
our Government when ignorant and i'm
moral foreigners are made citizens by hun
dreds and thousands. Our United States
laws are explicit in requiring evidence of
fitness for citizenship before naturalization
papers are granted. 'It shall be made to
appear to the satisfaction of the court adj
mitting such alien-(a) That he has resided
in the United States at least five years,
(c) and that during that time he
has behaved as a man of good moral char
acter, (d) attached to the principles of the
Constitution of the United States. (e) and
well disposed to the peace and good order
of the same" This is the law. How safe
we should be from the pernicious effect
of much ignorance and vicious
anarchism which now trouble us,
if committees of good citizens had
attended at our courts of naturalization,
and had forced home upon the conscious
ness of all officers of the law who have
power to grant naturalization papers, the
will of the people that this wise law be
obeyed! But in practice these provisions
of the law are a dead letter, as anyone
knows who has sat for few hours in any
one of our large cities and has seen the
purely mechanical method of making Amer
lean citizens out of foreigners, ignorant,
reckless, too often manifestly immoral and
besotted. The process is mechanical be-
cause it is usually conducted in the interest
of one or the other of the party ''machines"
By its agents the machine brings these un-
deserving candidates to the court and pays
their way through that it may 'vote them"
afterward. The shame and the danger to
our Government are manifest.
From the Public Schools.
But TIE great majority of our citizens
come to us not from Immigrant steamships,
but from the public schools! What are our
schools doirg to provide the United States
with citizens intelligent enough npon mat
ters political, and patriotic enough to secure
the permanent success of our form of gov
ernment ''by the people, for the people?"
The obligation of the State to maintain
the school we hear often enough empha-
sized. Is the obligation of the school to
support the State by using all right means
to train good citizens as frankly recognized
and as fairly met? In our school system is
there large enough place made for those
studies which promote intelligent patriot