Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-05-07
Random Thoughts.
II.


lustrates curious feature in our national
life. Arising as it did in sparsely set
tied country, and among highly intel
ligent people, it was hit upon as the read
lest way to accomplish a desired end,
| without any consideration of what is
proper for the State to do or not do. Ed
ucatlon was what was wanted tor their
children. The most convient way was to
have the public assume the burden,
without any thought of the future. No
injurious consequences could come of it
| under such circumstances. But the in
creaslng density of population of itself
brings change. As men are crowded
more closely together, and each one is
forced into closer relations with his
neighbors, whether he will or not, a
greater number of regulatinos will be re-
qnlred to prevent the one from infringing
upon the rights of another, and to prop
erly define and limit those rights. 1t will
be found, in many Instances. that old in
situations, beneficial to a scattered COM
mnnity, as population increases, beco me
entirely hurtful-or. as with our school
| system, become a different thing. The
| founders of our public schools who con-
| sidered the employment of teacher by
the state as only a convenient way of
| cmbbing together for that purpose. could
| hardly have foreseen the claims of later
| times and the enormous growth of State
| supervision incident to increased numbers
Being the device, as | have heretofore
| intimated, of homogeneous and rural
people, where all were in nearly the
. same station of life, the vast influx of all
I the nations of the globe, from the SWede
to the South African, each one bringing
| his peculiar virtues and vices, before
which our primitive American institutions
are dissO.ving as Snow dissolves in the
waters of a river, was not and could not
have been fOrseen. The spring, yelling
forth from the ground at the root Of some
gigantic oak of the forest, is source of
health, Il blessing alike to man and beast.
But in the crowded throughfare of
great city, contaminated by every impur-
| ity, it becomes curse to be repressed by
| statute. The country school, where
nearly all are of the same condition, may
not be traught with evil: the city school,
embracing, as it does, the good and bad,
| the high and the low-all nations and
sects-may, like the spring, become
purveyor of impurity. The increase of
| numbers is visibly dissolving others OF the
theories to which we have pinned our
Il. e.
our ideas of personal liberty, where men
are Utterly trampling each other to death?
The dweller in the city accepts interfer
ences with his private affairs as necessary
and matter of course, that would be
intolerable to the inhabitant of the coun-
try. The health officer examines your
premises. The policeman puts period
to your conversation on the street corner.
We may fairly conclude that, as popula-
ton increases, individual liberty, as we
understand the term, decreases, and
State control will tend more and more to
crowd itself into the domain hitherto
considered the exclusive province of pri-
vate judgement. If, with Carlyle, we
regard governments Gas the outward
skin of the body polite, holding tie
whole together and protecting it, we
may unc0nsciously be witnessing a pro-
cess similar TO that which takes place
annually in the lives OF various reptiles
the formation of new skin beneath the
old. which. after it mas served its turn is
burst and cast off. And the growth of
State supervision, instead of being mat
ter to be deplored ahd decried, as is ably
done by Herbert Spencer, may only be
the shining forth of the bright new skin
through the rents in the old, which is
passing away. Certainly, the assump-
ton of the parental duty on the part of
the State of educating the child, whether
it be right or wrong, Is long step to-
ward changing many of our old and
time honored notions. 1t supplants the
old theory that the family is the social
unit, and that the burden of educating as
we'll as maintaining the child belongs to
the parent by reaching into it and in a
measure compelling the parent to educate
the child in conformity to its wishes. In
no state where compulsory education
obtains, if the parent, from careful study
OF his child's constitution and disposition.
should conclude that his interests would
be best subserved by deferring the train
ing of the intellect as we understand the