The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-06-18
COMPULSORY EDUCATION.
From the Philadelphia Ledger.


One of the most interesting papers re
lating to the defective classes read be-
fore the national charity conference
recently held at Indianapolis. was by
Mr.. A. o. Wright, a conspicuous worker
ism. Mr.. Wrights entire argument
strongly supported by facts, was plea
for compulsory education as a means to
the end of lessening these two great evils.
The argument was based on statistics
showing the general youthfuiness OF
criminals, the average age of those in
penal confinement being only 81 years,
and of large proportion two years less.
This lesson has been taught for many
years in the admirable reports of the
eastern penitentiary of Pennsylvania,
prepared under the direction of MIR.
Vaux, president of the board of in
| spectors of that model prison. From
| the mass of confirmatory figures pre-
sented it was shown that criminals
are most frequently made when children
should be at school or learning trades.
| Hence Mr.. Wright contends that all
| children should be forced to attend
school. and not only that their minds
might be enlightened, but that they may
be occupied, as it is his belief that want
of occupation, especially with ignorance,
is responsible for the making of crfmi-
mails.
Social conditions and environments
undoubtedly have much to do with
shaping the lives of the young for good
or for evil. The child born into home
of intemperance, ignorance, sloth, vice
or crime, and environed daily and hour
~ during the formative period of the
mind. is much more likely than not to
form his character in accordance with
his surroundings, and to make his life of
kind with the lives of those with whom
he is constantly within intimate commu-
nicatlon. Idleness at time when
youthful blood flows warmly and eager
ly, when the passions are developing,
becomes strong and persistent incent-
i've to crime.
What Mr.. Wright proposes is that the
state take children subject to the temp
tations of degrading and demoralizing
living as its wards to the extent of giving
them the occupation of thinking and
learning, of putting them under whole
some discipline during part of each
school day, and bringing them during
school hours within the circle of whole
some influences. Because the state fails
to do this, through its failure to make
education compulsory in their earlier
life, it is often forced 10 make them its
wards, in jails and poorhouses, in their
later life. Mr.. Wright does not assume
that the enforced attendance of children
at school will abolish crime or pauper-
ism, but that it will diminish the volume
of them.
While conceding the utility of those
excellent institutions, the reform schools,
Mr.. Wright contends that preventive
measures should precede them, that the
state should not wait for the child TO
commit the overt act of crime before as
Stunning control of him, for then he has
already become a criminal. but that iG |
should, before the seeds of crime are
planted in him, reach out its strong hand |
to save him from the life of crime by |
placing him at school, where all the in |
fiuences about him will be helpful IN |
stead of hurtful, and where especially |
his time will be occupied, his mind |
profitably employed, and where he will |
be gaining an equipment for an honest |
living.
We have called crime and pauperism |
twin evils, and such they are, as the |
if he survive long enough to !
become too feeble to rob and steal, natur-
ally becomes the tramp, the street beg
gar or the inmate of the almshouse. In |
one character or another the youthful
is likely to become the ward of
the state, or a charge upon it, and if
there is preventive in compulsory edu-
cation, one which will make him use
full member instead of an enemy of
it would seem TO be a good thing
to put aside the too common prejudice
against 1t, and, at least, to give it fair
trial