New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-05-05
COLTHBTS IND FREE SCHOOLS .

The project of converting Columbus Day into
an American school festival will be heartily
commended by thoughtful minds. The dedlca-
ton of the Exposition buildings and grounds
will be National event of browning impor-
lance but in order to emphasize the signifi
canoe of the discovery of the New World and
TO render it ineligible throughout the length
and breadth of the land it is proposed to make
every schoOlhouse local centre for commcmo-
ratiye exercises. This plan has received the
sanction of the Worlds Congress Commission
and of the American Superintendent Of Ed
ucatiOn. An Executive Committee has been
appointed to organize a National movement
by which thirteen million school children III
every village and town in the Union can unite
in carrying out simple but effective pro-
gramme on that historic anniversary. There
is nothing impractcablc in the scheme. II will
only be necessary for every school to have
flag of its own to raise and salute on the morn
ing of the celebration. and then To be prepared
to listen to an address and to join in singing an
ode prepared for the occasion under the direc
ton of the National Committee. A holiday
will be put to the highcS, educational use if
all the school -chdrcn of the country can be
brought together AT the same hour to com
memorate the greatest event in the modern
world
The voyage of Columbus was Il protest
against the ignorance of the medieval age.
The discovery Of the New World was the first
sign Of the real renaissance Of the Old World.
II created new heavens and n new earth, broad
cncd immcasurabIy the horizon of men and
nations and transformed the whole order Of
European thought. Columbus was the great
est educator who ever lived. for he enamel
patcd mankind from the narrowncsS Of It's own
ignorance and taught the great lesson that
human destiny like divine mercy arches over
the Whole world. II perspective Of four
ccnturic, of progress could have iloatcd like a
mirage before the eyes of the great dscovercr
a. he wa, sighting san salvador the American
,choolhou,c would have loomcd up as the great
est institution of the New Worlds future Be
hind him he had left medieval ignorance in
numbered with superstition and paralyzcd by
an ecclesiastical pcdantry which passed for
learning. Before him lay New World with |
the promise of the potency of civil and religious
liberty, free education and popular enlighten-
mcni because the schoohousc like his own |
voyage. has been a protest against popular ig- |
nornncc and has done more than any thing else |
10 make our free America what il is, II would |
have lowered above everything else III that |
mirage like vision of the worlds progress.
The public school celebration on Columbus
Day is to he commended, therefore, not only |
as "A unique method of diffusing among local |
centres OF American life from Plymouth Rock
to the Golden Gate the significance and spirit
e a hln nj, but oil ,
teal expcdicnt for emphasizing the value Of
he mos, characteristic of National institutions,
the free school When the New World was
discovered by Columbus spain was the great
rst Power in Europe and England was an OBJ
;curc and petty State During the first century
after the landing on San Salvador great
Spanish Empire was founded stretching from
he Gulf of Mexico to Patagonia. Slowly and
aborously the English speaking race obtained
foothod in North America. Liberty was the
breath Of its life and free education was its
most precious bcqucst To succeeding genera
ions. The Spanish conqucrors never opened
free school. AS time passed their empire re-
,oltcd against them, and the constitutional
orms of the English speaking race in the North
we're roughly copied by one Southern rcpub-
ic after another. Popular education was neg
cctcd as it had been under Spanish Vice
'0ys, and consequently the moral force Of en-
ightcned public opinion was lacking in the
southern Hemisphere What has made the
american Republic the great power in mod
I'm civilization which it has been for a century
: the frcc-schOol system. Because it has
,ivcn form and direction to American progress,
he schoolhouse is a proper theatre for ccle-
'rating the great event Of October. If thirteen
million public-school children can be taught on
hat historic festival to value Alright the in
stimable benefits of free education, it will be
good augury for another century of more en-
ghtened progress.
TRIBUTE TO SETH DECKER.