The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1892-06-09
OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
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Continued from First Page.l
why7 asked the man vino told me
whv. and he said with sadness OF tone,
but with an emphasis that came from
intimate knowledge: They do not
know: they are ignorant. No; one IN
ten can write ar read. l hold that
truth In itself is iss own yinlicatlon,
aud carries in Itself tie power 10 free
the soul AMI 10 LIT il toward God.
THOMAS WENTWORTH ngaGISSoS.
Thirsl-Here In the peblic school we
have the patriotic furnace in which the
clashing sects and creeds and nation
alities of orr composite nation may be
made into one grand patriotic whole.
Here Catholic and Protestant meet each
other and learn the first lessons Of charity
and fraternity. One Of the things that
keeps the Protestant and Catholic world
in O condition Of constant irritation and
aggravated assault Is lack of knowl-
edge. We do not know each other. We
do not know the facts about one another.
We do not take the pains 10 know. There
are few fools in this country who have
predicted that there will DO a war be-
tween Catholics and Prutestants, sooner
or later. say there are some fools; |
know Of but one fool biz enough TO make
publicly this prediction. But l have
heard IL. This is the Idle .waddlle Of a
fool. because the public school has made
1t an impossihility. There are thousands
and tens Of thousands Of Catholics i'm
our country who are the firm friends Of
our public school system, who were edu-
Gated in il, and whose children are being
educated in il. Here their own minds
were broadened and their own knowledge
strengthened. Colonel Higginson saws
In Harper's Bazaar: when in my child
hood Protestant mob went by night to
the Ursuline convent on Mount Benedict
and burned 1: over the heads of the W..
men and girls who We're its sole occu-
pants, watched the flames from dis
lance by my mother's side and shared her
indignation. The next morning when
the family butcher arrived she went ont
to sound him as 10 the public sentiment.
and to find sympathy for her own.
WAL, | dunno. / guess them biships is
real dissipated characters There spoke,
unquestionably, the popular sympathy
of the period, brought up on 'Fox's Book
of Martyrs and quite ready for little
retaliation in kind"
If such deed were done today a mil
lion Protestants would rise in the morn
ing and demand that justice he done in
the name of their church and their God;
simply because we are coming to know
each other better Different nationali-
ties and races in the public school learn
there the first lessons of patriotism
They learn to know each other and
learn to know Americans.
FOREIGN DEVILS.
Half the difficulty with foreign hatred
and misunderstanding lies in ignorance
Of each other. The Chinese estimate of
a foreigner is interesting for the Anglo
Saxon to study. Judged by their stand
ard we are vastly their interiors. Bat few
men have ever mastered their historical
and classical literature. They look with
profound contempt upon the scholarship
Of the western world. They regard with
profound contempt the standard of NOR
ality in many respects. In China a
may travel unattended for hun
dreds of miles. They hear with amaze
ment that woman can scarcely ven
ture in the streets Of great city in the
western world unattended after night
fall. They call foreigners ''moustrosi-
ties, ""red haired men, ""foreign devils"
They regard us as heather. We treat
all their deities from the highest to the
lowest with irreverence. "They DO not
worship the gods" they say of us. What
is worse, they declare, "They do not
their ancestors" This of course
is mistake; we do have churches that
their ancestors. know some
III fact who have been gnawing tho |
bones of their ancestors for several hun |
bred years. The difficulty with the
Chinaman is that he lacks information.
All these wild statements he firmly be-
ieves because he does not know the
acts. So we misunderstood foreigners:
20 they misunderstood us.
Our nation is to be composite nation. |
We have the problem Of reconciling into |
me consistent mass of citizenship these
conflicting nationalities. The public
school is the furnace in which the ANAL
gam can be made. l rejoice that over
III public school we are raising at every
7 3ssroad and in every city the flag of
Lo nation. 1t SHOULD be requirement
# law that over every school house the
l. Z should float. 1t would teach "a lesson
it is worth cur while to teach. IF
Ii these schools, over which floats the
l. Z, we teach all nations and all races
Is story, and teach it in the language of
he Declaration of Independence and the
institution of the Union, we are safe.
X { me say that / believe there should be
10 compromise with those who deny the
ieht OF entry to the English language
4 any school that stands for public edu-
alton. Between those who would i'm
o+e foreign language upon growing
lI,dren, give them an education that
! ttSthem even to read the laws they
~ to obey-between these people and the
: riots of the republic there can be no
ompromise. In the public school only
ill we find the solution for the Indian
roblem and for the negro problem of
le south
CHURCH VERSUS STATE.
Here society may fulfill its primal OBJ
cations to the child. The law of ma
-. ~.~ne To everv child an education by
lythright. The state that fails to see
i1s right enforced has violated one of {
le fundamental laws of its existence. !
ne period of infancy is the period of .
achableness. The possibility of the |
lture depends upon the length of the 8
'r1od OF infancy. In man the period of /
fancy is longer than in any other ami 8
al by far. The period of infancy is the 6
easure OF childhood's rights inherent. '
ne state must fulfill this divine obliga-
we need not shy at the idea of {
ate. BY state we mean simply the Y
opie acting as whole in their sover- I
On capacity. The state only has the O