Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-07
MUST GO TO SCHOOL.
Wakeman's Description of Britain's
Compulsory Education.
MAKES LIARSAND SCHOOL HATERS.
How Iruancy Is Punished, and Why 1t Is
Nevertheless Frequent.
THE EVIDENT WRONGS IN THE SYSTEM


the British Parliament enacted that all
children of England and Wales, between
the ages of 5 and 13 years if the sixth
standard" had been reached, should be CON-
pulsorily educated. At different times
since, it has made laws that these children
should receive this compulsory education,
either in various voluntary" or parish and
church schools, or in ''board'' schools under
local and governmental supervision, and
eompulsorily pay for the same.
The 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
Is 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
Go, or we will fine you for 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 yourself, 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 yourself and your offspringv'
Lots of Liars and School Haters.
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-crimi-
mails among the good and bad alike; an army
of VISITORS" inspectors and detectives,
whose unempowered though universally
exercised brutality among helpless children
and distracted and ignorant mothers is mex
pressiblv infamous: and hundreds of So
called Industrial Schools, or Ragged and
"Truant" schools, as they are more popu-
larly termed, which, whatever their merits
OF management on the line of their legalized
purposes, are an inexcusable outrage upon
the inalienable 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 Government allowance from taxation,
though their support actually comes from
the parents of scholars forced to attend
school, through fee ranging from 1 penny,
or cents, to pence, or Is cents, per week,
for each child. As the poor are notoriously
most prolific, the fees taken from family
compelled to send from three TO five chill
dren to a board school may average pence
each per week, or from 30 to 30 cents for the
whole number Now workingmen in Eng
land, taking into consideration short time
and periods when no work whatever is to be
had, do not earn an average wage of over IA
shiilings, or So So, per week, the wear round
As the children of the well-to-do and the
rich are educated in private schools, or at
home under tutors, it will be seen that the
chief burden of the entire elementary
school system was originally fitted TO the
hartSE ThOSa " hn ppr-l1 no fba
den.
Fees in the Voluntary Schools.
The voluntary schools are simply those
schools established under bequestS, the
schools founded bv associations and the par
ish schools Of nearly every religious denom-
ination in England. They all demand fees,
IN mo- cases exceeding those established
by the board schools. In these voluntary
schools are usually found the children of
those who object to their offspring being
contaminated by companionship with
the children Of the lowlv; and the chill
dren of those parents who regard the re-
religious teaching of the board schools
TOO neutral, or not suited to the faith
10 Which they belong; but all these volun-
tary 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 to force the fees from destitute
parents. they are claimed and allowed from
the parish poor rates There are seven
standards or grades, ard a Especial
SEVENTH" the latter merely comprising
class receiving special attention for prof.
cheney. Out of the latter the master
chooses those who are TO compete for an an
nuai scholarship; and this entities the win
ner to a collegiate school education Of about
three wears term.
The most effective commentary upon the
inherent wrong in the British system of
compulsory education with compulsory pay
uent for The same, is found in few briefly
stated facts. 1t is universally admitted by
all board school visitors" inspectors, de-
tectives and officers, as well as by magis-
trates adjudicating school board cases, that
II has come 10 be the most desperate struggle
for a large portion of the lowly of Eng
land. second only TO their struggle for
bread, TO evade the registration of their
children for school attendance.
UnreIenting Warfare on the Law.
If that, to them, miserable misfortune be-
falls, then 1t is their next unremitting
struggle TO defeat bv every expediencv,
cunning device falsehood and downright |
villainy, the enforcement of the law. 1t re-
lentlessly hunts, hauDts and harries them,
SO long as they possess child within the |
compulsory age; and ! personally know of |
scores of families where one or both parents |
have been prosecuted to their grave. and |
their children driven from possible re- |
spectability to permanent criminal life
This Information Is based on the state |
ments of school visitors, inspectors and rep |
utable people. But any one has access 10 |
the fact thai in London, for the nine months |
ending March 81, 1887, out of the parents of |
the enormous number of 1860 children |
summoned before the police magistrates for
non-attendance or irregular attendance IO3 |
had been preyiousl Y summoned between IL |
and 80 times. Not only this but accord
ing to official returns, for every 100 schoI-
ars' seats provided (while there is not pro-
vision for one-sixth of all British children
who are entitled to receive elementary edu-
caJion) there is, under the compulsory at /
tendance and pay system, an average at
tendance OF only about 13 per cent 1t is
also true that there is an attendance, forced
and voluntary, of only about &c per cent in
all British elementary schools.
In other words, after an army of detect
ives have found a certain number of chill
dren, which the law merc1lessIy drives TO
school and into paying for the schooling
and the driving, the utmost rigor of Brit |
ish law-reinforced by the relentless magis-
trates, by constables, detectives and ''vis-
TORS" whose very sustenance depends upon
Jheir vigilance, and the endless dread of |
prison to both parents and chlldren-can
at1er all compel school attendance of only
three-i0urths of the children under actual |
everyday surveillance.
Reasons for the Small Attendance.
Is it any wonder that. under such a sys-
tenn. the entire school attendance of the