The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-01
TRAINING A CITIZEN.
He Should Be Familiar With the
Principles of Government.
NATURALIZATION LAWS VOID.
What Are Our Public Schools Doing TO
Provide the United States With In
teIligent and Patriotic Voters?
BY THE PRESIDENT OF AMHERST coLLEar.

government, Either there are certain
principles in which wise men and practl-
cal men are agreed, and such principles
can be learned and should be taught, or
government is matter of chance to DC
managed at haphazard. Does any one be-
ieve that affairs of government are the
only occupation in which rational men en-
gage where study and experience OF others
are of no value 10 learners?
Since any male citizen Of suitable age
may become q legislator or an office
holder, while every citizen has an appre-
ciable influence upon the political lie OF
his neighborhoOd, it is evident that every
citizen of the United States ought to have
some intelligent comprehension not only OF
the essential features OF our own govern
ment, national, state and local or munlc-
ipal, but also of the fundamental princi-
pies of political ethics, political economy
and political science.
We get our supply of new citizens from
two sources-immigration, and the grow
ing 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
hundreds and thousands. Our United
States laws are explicit in requiring evil
dence of fitness for citizenship before
naturalization papers are granted.
Il shall be made TO appear to the satisfaction
OF the court admitting such alien-(D That he
has resided in the United States at least five
years, (cJ and that during that time he
has behaved as a man of good moral character,
(d) attached to the principles of the constitution
OF the United States, (e) and we'll 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 citi-
zens had attended at our courts of natur-
aliZation, and had forced home upon the
consciousness 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 any one
knows who has sat for few hours in
court in any one of our large cities and
has seen the purely mechanical method of
making American citizens out of for
eigners, ignorant, reckless, too
often manifestly immoral and
besotted. The process is mechanical"
because it is usually conducted in the in
terest of one or the other of the party ma
chimes" By its agents the machine brings
these undeserving candidates to the court
and pays their way through that it may
''vote them" afterward. The shame, and
the danger to our government, are mani
fest.
But the great majority of our citizens
come to us not from the emigrant steam
ships. but from the public schools! What
are our schools doing to provide the United
States with citizens intelligent enough
enough to secure the permanent success of
our form of government "by the people,
for the people2"
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 recog-
nized and as fairly met? In our school
system is there large enough place made
for those studies which promote intelli-
gent patriotism, voluntary obedience to
law, and public spirited interest in public
affairs?
In Germany it became a fundamental
maxim of state policy a century ago,
''What you would have come out in the
life OF the nation, you must put into the
schools and the universities" The won
many in these last decades is directly
traceable to her observance of this law of
selt-preservation applied by the state to
Germany's educational system, in which
patriotism is steadily and Systematically
inculcated, .and the fitting of young men
for the proper discharge of public duties
has important place.
In America We have been slow to make
room in the curriculum of our schools
ana colleges for the tudies that empha-
size the demands which popular self-goy-
eminent makes upon the citizen. as well
as the blessings it Conters.
OF our form of government, as of every-
thing else that is precious in life, it is true
that IF We would preserve it we must love
IT, And intelligent study of the under
lying principles OF government will stimu-
late Just pride in our own form of gov
eminent and Will furnish a rational basis
ana sure SUPPORT for that loyal spirit of
true patriotism which is the strength of a
nation.
Here We see the value of the great tide
OF consciousness of national life which
swept across the continent with the recent
celebration OF the centennial of our con-
sututIon. As We recall the struggle for
independence, we are grateful to the
heroic founders of our national govern
ment We love our country more lntellj-
gently and more truly. Is our thought is
HXed upon the cost and the value of our
national life; and it augurs we'll for our
country that the Imperative demand
arises from tie young in 50 many OF our
institutions OF learning: Give US fuller
instruction IN the studies that lit men for
cltzensMp-In the principles of govern
Meuti IN the ethics, the motive mowers
ana the economies of social Hfe-in the
duties OF American citizenship.
All colleges which deserve the name
no" furnish tuI instruction in such
themes. hLt important Is Is the influence
Of literally educated men up0n the Ifs
o! America, II IS bat small percentage OF
o"F voters Who in their school studies
LtAch 'Ae college course or even the hirh
scAooI II Is most important that an
ldtuFe c.1ZeaS girls and BOYS alike. in all
our schools, SHOULD have elementary m
stGut-.eu n the principles Of good citizen
snip. ~ 4s the M lers OF our BOYS. and
the early schoo. H., Of our bows. that
largely determine the life bias toward good
tt-@tAsGIp or bad citizenship for The
great mass o.. our voters.
An intelligent, public spirited mother il
almost ny necessity the mother Of patri-
Ouc sons and daughters. Given OIL
mothers in this respect, and good s0Ds
Hollow. 10 the ambitious mother who
asked the witty divine how she conId
MAKE sure that her boy should one day be-
come BISHOP he replied. first get h1n,
ooIh riSht." This goes TO the root of tha
matter. And the next step, that We may
I've a. many boys as possible early
',14Het IN The principles and spirlt Of
E'o4 ciii%enshlp, is 10 see that mothers
SISTERS and teachers of young children
are lhtelIgentiy awake TO the re-
sP5hsloIuty OF residence AMONG a
SCI governing people. The girls and the
women o. our country should he Gas we
Cei-eVe many of them arel lnteiligeut nat
Z gissft md