The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1895-09-05
Literary Notes

Even during the hard financial strain
OF the past two years the great majority
of those who have suffered have been
those who have never been taught to do
anything, or at least never been taught
with thOroughness that makes instruc-
ton convertible into terms of dollars
and cents, bread and butter
The generic problem of the race is to
keep soul and body together, and the
school problem is first of all to put the
rising generation in the way of making
the junction of the two possible. So
long as the State assumes the care Of
paupers it is the duty Of the state to
use it's best means to prevent the exis-
tence Of paupers, and one Of the most
direct means to that end is to see to it
that all the children in the State are
thoroughly instructed in reading, writ
ing and arithmetic, and are substan-
TALLY trained in the practice of some
form of remunerative handiwork, writes
the Rev. Charles II. Parkhurst, D. D..
in vigorous article on "Compulsion in
Child Training" in the September
L0dies' Home Journal. There is work
enough to be done in this big world by
people who are willing to work and who,
know how. The idea of immense
wealth secured by some process of fnan-
cial legerdemain has so pervaded the
general atmosphere that sufficiency
has ceased to satisfy, and young man
resolves either to speculate his way to
fortune, or to steal some ones else for
tune, or if both these eXpedients fail,
to turn professional idler and subsist
on charity. The incentive to substan-
tial equipment for the struggle of
life is thus withdrawn. If | were the
State l would compel every child to
acquire the means of an honest hveli--
hood, even at the risk of the whip, and
then if, having acquired that means,
he failed to avail of it to his own main
tenance, 1 would commit him to the
workhouse and keep him at hard labor
there till he experienced a change of
heart. There is no respectable con-
sistency between states care of the
poor and States neglect of stringent
means for preventing the existence of
the poor If a government ought to be
"paternal" to the extent of feeding
paupers it ought to be ''paternal' TO the
extent of obliging possible or intend
;,,o TO no oh fn
selves. The root difficulty in all this
matter is the indisposition of parents
and other constituted authorities to
make serious business of laying sub
stantial foundations in the early years
of our young people, boys and girls.
One of the chief sources of misery
among the working classes is the wife's
ignorance of the duties that belong to
her. She is ignorant of them because
she has never been compelled to learn
them. If we could split half of our
pianos into kindling wood and pluck
the strings out of three quarters of our
harps and banjos, and set our young
girls to the practical task of becoming
proficient in self-sustaining way up
on some line or other of remunerative
industry, it would be a great BENSON
to society in general. In whatever di-
rection we look and whatever improve
ment we seek to effect, we come back
to it again and again that the end is
determined by the beginning, and that
the foundations of all public better
ment have to be laid in the children