Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-12-12
Love Better Teacher Than Fear.

| The best way to teach is to make the les
sons entertaining, so that the boys and girls
| will not learn from fear of the lash but
| from love of the lesson. 1t makes great
| difference whether the impulsion that
| drives the scholars on comes from the
| teacher or from thems elves. The purpose
of the school is to get the scholars to de-
sire to learn. And this holds true in all
| kinds of government. The best way to de-
crease crime is to reform the people who
| commit crime and make them into decent
| citizens. And that reformation will be
made efTectual not by any reign of terror,
| not By raids nor jails, but by the providing
| of new ideals, by the opening OF new oppor-
tunities, by the conversion of the individ-
| ual soul.
| One of the secrets of the great difference
| between the upper and lower strata of So
| ciety, between the rich and the poor, be-
| tween the saints and the sinners, between
| the houses OF righteousness and happiness,
! and the houses of disorder, is to be found in
q difference of opportunity. The respecta-
| Bile people have had chance: the other
| people have had no chance. If the environ
lnents had been reversed, and the virtuous
had been born and bred like the vicious,and
the vicious had been brought up in clean
| houses like the virtuous, who dares say
| what reversals would not have appeared in
| character A great majority of the people
| whose lives are but long game ofhide-and-
| seek with the policeman owe their hard lot
| to lack of decent opportunity. They have
never had q chance.
And the ideal of reformation is to give
| these people not more law put more chance;
not to emphasize what is bad in them, but
to cultivate what is good. If the city would
spend in efforts for elevation half what it
spent in efforts for detection and detention
twice the good would be accomplished.
What we want is not stouter calls but
cleaner streets, not prisons but picture gal
leries, not more criminal legislation but
more sanitary regulation. Make the city,
even In it's poorest neighborhoods, decent
place to live in. That will do more to de-
crease crime than a whole army of police
men.
Higher Levels of Thought Needed.
IT is along this line, think, that we
must look for adequate solutions OF good
many hard problems The labor trouble,
for instance, is not to be adjusted by per-
fecting legal machinery to suppress strikes,
but by getting at what is right and reasona-
bic and just in the complaints of labor and
emphasizing that Indeed, in this case, the
heart of the problem lies deeper still. We
must first learn that the chief end of man is
not the acquiring of money. We must get
selves to thinking along higher levels and
accounting the various prizes of life ut truer
valuations.
There is good deal of discussion just now
about the keeping of Sunday. The Colum-
bian Exposition has set US all to considering
that grave question. 1t will be we'll, it seems
to me- to apply to this matter that wise prin-
cirle which works so eXcellently elsewhere
Let us not try to get Sunday kept Alright
by forbidding people to keep it in wrong
ways, but rather by persuading them to
keep it in right ways. Our best plan will be
to accent the profitable uses Of that day of
rest.
Mr. Henry Phipps has sent to me from
Knebworth House copy of this years an
nual report of the Sunday Society, together
with several pamphlets relating to its works.
They are more progressive than we are
over in England. We may as well confess
it. 1t is true that they hold with obstinate
conservatism TO compartment coaches and
luggage labels, and other small matters in
which we have made improvements. But
their cities are better governed than ours.
They are q great deal nearer to all chat is
true in socialism than we are. They will
, have equal suffrage sooner than we will.
And here is the Sunday Society. A great
many of our good people will still consider
it necessary to hold up their hands against
upon its roll some OF the best names in the
land. Dean Stanley was its first President.
Bishops are among its advocates.
English Ideas of Sunday Observance.
THE purpose of the Sunday Society is
to further the right observance OF the first
day of the week. And since this is so large
an aim, and opens into so widc field, one
chief object has been singled out for accom-
plishment and only one. The Sunday So
ciety Is not organized to persuade people to
hear sermons or say prayers, nor to spend
portion of the good day in the reading OF
good books, nor even to get good people to
consecrate that day as a weekly festival of
good deeds. These matters 1t is content to
leave with the Christian Church. Its men,
bers are interested, doubt not, in getting
these excellent purposes accomplished, but
they recognize the fact that he who tries to
do everything does nothing.
The purpose of the Sunday Society is 'to
obtain the opening of museums, art CALLER
les, libraries and gardens on Sunday" How
much better it is to open good doors than
oven to close bad ones. And how much
wiser to go on and try to make Sunday
pleasant and profitable, rather than stand
by with long and frowning face and abuse
people who are abusing Sundayl What
shall we do on Sundayf That is what we
want to know. We are commercial travel
ers and young men in boarding houses and
at hotels, and young women working in
offices and people without homes. What
shall we do on Sunday2 Suppose we go to
church; that will not I'LL up all the day.
How shall we spend the afternooni
AQuestion That Must Be Answered.
we must be taken just as we are. We
are not saints. We are not greatly inter- |
ested in services or sermons. But we are |
not wholly given over to the devil, either |
There is great deal of good in us. What
are you going to do for us on the Christian
holiday?
The question must be answered. If the
Church is not ready. to make answer, the |
persuasive devil will. There Is no lack of
places for us to go-not very profitable
places, some of them. What can you good
people offer us on your side to Offset these
manifold temptations. The Sunday Society
says libraries, art galleries, museums, gar
dens-get them all open. If 1t is true that
the great need of most people is a chance,
let us make Sunday the great day OF oppor-
tunity. Open all the doors which lead into
good places. Have music in the parks and
in the churches. Try the Christianizing in
fluences of books and flowers Make the day
q delight.
That is what Bishop Potter, of New York,
says ought to be done at Chicago. He is
right. The Worlds Fair has its Sunday
uses. Education is a part o: religion. II