The Republican journal., 1892-07-07

all increase VI luAdllou. Duu Ill llt lung
run would it? After presenting a few
facts. Twill leave it for each one to answer
for himself or herself The New York |
kindergarten Association gives the cost !
gartens in that city as S2S per capita, |
while at the Elmira Reformatory it costs
the State 1888 per annum to support one
of these children whose manual training
has been neglected, until through the
commission of some crime they are finally
sent to this prison, where some trade or
handicraft is taught them. Mr.. Buck way,
the very humane and intelligent superin-
tendent Of the Elmira Reformatory, says
that every few of these burdens on soci-
ETY. have any knowledge of any craft re
quiring skilled labor, and that their par
cnts are Just as deficient" | have not
taken the time to look up the statistics in
Belfast, or in Maine generally. But we
all know something of the cost of main
tanning the citys poor. of supporting a
county jail and its inmates. to say moth
iny OF the great cost of maintaining the
Reform School and State Prison. with their
numerous salaIied officials. superintend-
ants. etc
We can see, if we will that the money
/ paid to support the dependent and crimi-
nal classes even in Belfast would. if so APP
piled in connection with literary work in
our public schools, give every girl and boy
of this city an opportunity to acquire such
knowledge of some trade. landicraft or
business, as would lift them with good
health) beyond the possibility of ever be-
coming a burden upon society either as
run all. or nearly all, would become pro-
ducers Of wealth. instead of consumers of
other people wealth. We are used to the
machinery of courts, of civil and criminal
prosecutions, of appropriations for pau
pers and criminals, and scarcely stop to
think there is a better and more enlighten-
ed way in the one word prevention. Lead
ing educators everywhere are seeing in
manual training a solution of the Ozark
est England problems that equally
confront New England. and naturally are
Philadelphia, st. Louis. Boston, New
York and other cities. where it has been
tried with the most beniticent results No
one claims that manual training will pro-
duce such good results in day OF a year,
but that hand in hand with physical, in
tcllectual, ethical and spiritual training it
will lead to results quite undreamed of in
/ this DAY and generation. That Dr.. Hale
'Home OF the Sybartes' will become a
reality in more lands than one That the
! large classes of even the So-called educated
will he equally benefited no one can doubt
who reads the large city daiies and OBJ
serves the long lists of wants by the
''well educated young man or woman. =
Fresh from school or college, with no
means OF support, they crowd the al
ready over crowded professions, and so
add to the general weight of misery by
1 tii0il itith VI oiiCoidi
That college or literary training of it.
self is no special safeguard against want
and CRIME is proven many times over The
superintendent of large English prison
reports that the greatest rascal | have
in charge can write out the Lord S PRAYER
in seven lan@uages.' Another states that
lam Iva, L. 4
| year were more than thousand clerks.
fortytwo lawyers, and many more whose
education was superior. In this CON
nection Mr.. II. NJ. Plunkett of New York
writing on this subject. brings up the H.
lustration, which some OF You may re-
member having seen in the newspapers.
Of Ia" firm i'll Chicago that advertised
for AN office messenger. and in response
''received more than six hundred appli-
cations from college bred men and acade-
my taught boys, 1t would be interest
ing to know how many applicants even a
Belfast lawyer or merchant would receive.
| If he should advertise for office messenger.
clerk OF bookkeeper At the same time
housekeepers may advertise for weeks for.
| a competent cook or hollsekeeper without
! finding either. Neither is it any easier to
| find skilled mechanic, if we want an ar
tistic floor laid, a convenient mantel for
fire place, or a cabinet for our bric-a- brac.
The mechanic and industrial arts have
been 50 long neglected that a skilled arti.
san in any of these departments is
''rara avis That this state of things.
together with the thriftlessness of the
very poor, is largely due to the old ideas
of education, no thinking man or woman
can gansay.
President Eliot of Harvard says: 1--WE
are all wrong in supposing that we have
the best school system in the world
There is not a country in the north of
Europe that has not better system. The
immigrants who come to our shores from
abroad will be found to have received
far better school training in what are de-
nominated the common branches than
the average of the rural population of
this country