The Irish standard., 1893-01-28
SATURDAY. JANUARY 2s. 1898.
w1NSrON'S TEXT BOOK BILL.

wINSTON'S TEXT BOOK BILL.
1t is now generally admitted by states
men and theologians in every civilized
country that popular system OF educa-
ton is necessary for good citizenship.
To what extent the state in it's political
capacity may snbserve the interests OF
popular education, and what are it's du-
ties and responsibilities in reference to
the intellectual and moral culture OF It's
future citizens, and how those duties and
responsibilities may most effectually be
performed and adequately met, are pro-
blems which have long engaged the at
tention of wise men in church and state.
All men of advanced ideas agree that
every civilized community should have
schools for the education of the young,
and while some maintain that the parents
have the prior and sole right TO attend to
the training of their offspring to prepare
them for the duties of life, and deny the
expediency and the right of interference
on the part of the state, others contend
that the state possesses the power and
the right to withdraw the child from the
parents if necessary and place him under
the exclusive care and guardianship OF
teachers appointed by and responsible to
the state only. Without entering into
an argument for or against either OF
these extreme views, we are OF the opln-
ion that the state is perfectly justifiable,
in view of it's own welfare and preserva-
tion.to see to it that all Its future cit
liens shall receive at least the rudl-
ments of an education in the ordinary
English to branches. If the parents are
negligent in giving an education to their
children in either public or private
schools, we believe. it is the bounden
duty of the state to interfere and compel
them to send their children where they
can oct an elementary instruction to tit
them for the duties of citizenship. In
other words, we believe in compulsory
education by the commonwealth. What
constitutes q state? Let Sir William
Zones answer in the familiar lines:
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets
crowned;
Not bays and broad armed ports,
Where. laughing at the storm, rich navles
ride;
Not star and spangled courts,
where low-born baseness watts perfume to
pride;
No-men, high-minded men,
With mowers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest brake, or den,
AS beasts excrl cold rocks and brambles rude;
Men, who their duties know,
But know etheir rights, and, knowing, dare
maintain;
Prevent the long aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.
These constitute state;
And sovereign law. that with coilecteo Will
Ger thrones and globes elate,
sits empress. GROWING good, REFRESHING ILL.,
Men will not know their duties nor
their rights unless they are taught what
they are, and if they remain in ignorance
of them they will never "crush the
tyrant and rend the chains The history
of Ireland furnishes forcible illustra-
ton of the fact. Think you that If the
Irish people had been taught their
rights, as they we're in the days OF yore
when their island was studded with
schools, that they would have remained
to this day hugging the chains OF their
British taskmasters? The greatest IN
Justice and wrong perpetrated on the
Irish people by an alien government was
depriving them Of education, and making
- crime to have schools for one hum
dred wears. They have hardly recovered
rom the effects OF the penal laws, even
to this day. Thomas Davis, the poet
Sc the Young Irelanders, fully expresses
,oulrn,eaning when he says
to plead.
For bid to read.
4 ,isarmed. disfranchised. imbecile
what wonder If our step betrays ID III
The freedman, born IN penal days22f
s s1aSi II tie other hand, look a the amer
l N republic and ses what ducatio g ]
|EIss itlones for 81 Had Il been deprived
MOON eland 1ls one e hun ~: