The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1895-08-27
THE DUTY OF THE STATE.
The Care of the Poor and the Neglect
OF Means for Preventing Poverty.

oi NleuuS lOF IFcNchtluR IOFefty.
Even during the hard financial strain
Of the past two years the great ma
jority 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 instruction 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 pos
sible. So long as the State assumes
the care of paupers it is the duty of
the State to use its best means to
prevent the existence 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, writing and arithmetic,
and are substantially trained in the
practice of some form OF rcmunerative
handiwork, writes the Rev. Charles
H. Parkhurst, ID. d., In a vigorous
article on Compulsion in Child Train
ing" in the S .ptcmber Ladies' Home
journal. There is work enough to be
done in this big world by people who
are willing to work and W no know how.
| The idea of immense wealth secured
| by some process of financial leg erde-
[ main has SO pervaded the general
atmosphere that sufliciency has
| ceased to satisfy and a young man
resolves either to speculate his way TO
! fortune, or to steal some ones else
| fortune, if both these expedients fail,
| to turn professional idlcr and subsist
| on charity. The incentive to substan-
t'al equipment for the struggle of life
is thus withdrawn.
| If wore the State | would compel
| every child to acquire the means OF an
| honest livelihood, even at the risk OF
the whip, and then if having acquired
that means, he failed to avail OF it to
his own maintenance, | would commit
him to the workhouse and keep him at
hard labor there till he experienced q
change of heart. There is no respecta
BILE consistency between States care
of the poor and States neglect o
stringent means for preventing the
mept ought to be "paternal to the
exttnj OF feeding paupers it ought tt
be "paternal " to the extent of oblig
ing possible or intending paupers to be
able to feed themselves. The roo
difficulty in all this matter is the in
disposition OF parents and other con
stituted authorities to make serious
business Of laying substantial founda
tions in the early years Of our young
people, boys and girls.
One of the chief sources Of miser,
among the working classes is the wife
ignorance of the duties that belong u
her. She is ignorant of them becaus
she has never been compelled to learl
them. If we could split half Of GU
pianos into kindling wood and plucl
the strings out of three-quarters of ou
harps and banjos, and set our youni
girls to the practical task Of becoming
proficient in Il self-sustaining way upo
some line or other of remunerative In
dustry it would be great bensiO
, to society in general. In whatcve
direction we look and whatever in
provement we seek to effect, we com
, back to it again and again that the en-
! is determined by the beginning, an
, that the foundations of all public be
= terment have to be be laid in tn
/ children.