Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-11-08
BRITISH SCHOOLS.
An Outrage Upon the Inalien.
able Rights of Child Life.
TREAT ENT OF CHILDREN.
The So-Called Free Education Bill Not a
Bill for Free Educational School
System that Ruins More
Homes than Rum Ruins.
Special Correspondence of the Gazette.

Special Correspondence of the Gazette.
LONDON, Oct. 26, 1S91.-Twenty-one years
ago the British parliament enacted that all
children of England and Wales, between
ages of five and thirteen years if the sixth
standard had then been reached, should
be compulsorily educated. At different
times since, it has made laws that these
children should receive this compulsory ed
ucation, ethics in various voluntary or
parish and church schools, or in board
schools under local and governmental SUI
pervision, and compulsorily pay for the
same.
Yhe state, in effect, said: ''You, Tiny Tot,
aged five years, are to attend such school as
we may provide, or your parents select,
every school-day of your life, until you are
thirteen years of age, or have passed the
sixth standard, or we will clap you in a
criminal institution; and you, Tiny Tots
father, must pay for what we compel your
child to do, or we will fine you for every
absence recorded against it and tax you for
the cost Of its Imprisonment whenever we
finally shut it up; and then, if you cannot
pay its accrued fees and fines and
the accruing judgments against your
self, we will also clap you in Jail until they
are paid or are iquidated by Imprisonment;
when we will then release you and again
begin the same wholesome care of your
self and your offspring"
Out of this exquisite system has grown,
naturally and in order, millions OF, school
haters and liars; hundreds of thousands of
petty law-breakers before the local magis-
tracy; tens of thousands of children-crim-
inals among the good and bad alike; an
army of ''visitors," inspectors and detec-
tiveS, whose unempowered, though univer-
sally exercised, brutality among helpless
children and distracted and ignorant moth
ers is inexpressibly infamous; and hun
- I'd, IL
ragged" and ''truant' schools, as they are
more popularity termed, which, whatever
their merits of management on the line of
their legalized purposes, are an inexcusable
outrage upon the in alienable rights of child
life and home-life
IN ANY CIVILIZED LAND.
The elementary schools are of two kinds;
the board schools and the voluntary schools.
The first are vaguely supported by govern
ment allowance from taxation, though their
support actually comes from the parents of
the scholars forced to attend school,
through fee ranging from l penny, or
cents. to 9 pence, or Is cents, per week for
each child. As the poor are VIGOROUSLY
most prolific, the fees taken from a family
compelled to send from three to five chill
dren to board school may average pence
each per week, or from 80 to so cents for
the whole number. Now, workingmen in
England, taking into consideration short
time and periods when no work whatever
is to be had, do not earn an average wage
of over IA shilhngs, or g. 50, per week, the
year round. As the children of the well-to-
do and the rich are educated in private
schools, or at home under tutors, 1t will be
seen that the chief burden of the entire
elementary school system was originally
fitted to the backs Of those who
COULD NOT CARRY THE BURDEN.
The voluntary schools are simply those
schools established under requests, the
schools founded by associations and the
parish schools of nearly every religious
denomination il England. They all demand
fees, in most cases exceeding those estab-
hshed by the board schools. In these vol
untary schools are usually found the child
rem of those who object to their offspring
being Contaminated" by companionship
with the children of the lowly, and the
children Of those parents who regard the
religious teaching of the board schools too
neutral, or not suited to the faith to which
they belong, but all these voluntary schools
in time came under the same grading as the
board schools, and like them, are subject to
yearly governmental inspection. In all
cases where the board school authorities
by Imprisonment of parents or children, or
by other means, are unable &c force the fees
from destitute parents, they are claimed
and allowed from the parish poor rates.
There are seven standards or grades and
special seventh, !" the latter merely coEi-
prising class receiving special attention
for proficiency. Out Of the latter the mas
ter choooas thnaD Who are to compete Tor an