Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1895-02-28
The Government as an Educational
Publisher.

ne OulIeu CtdteS IOS6FuIuout Is on
the way to be the greatest publisher
in the world, if it is not so already.
The amount of printed matter. bound
and unbound, issued by the various
departments at Washington is enor-
year. Probably ninety per cent. of
these publications is not mere routine
report, but an account of Investigations
or theories, scientific, economic, edu-
cational, statistical, or impertinent.
The Bureau of Education seems to
have no other purpose than to accumu-
late and publish such material. The
latest volume which we have received
from that gross humbug and fraud is
the two hundred and tenth published
by it. This book is the nineteenth
number in series called ''Contribu-
tions to American Educational His
| tory" The series was begun by Mr..
Nathan H. r. Dawson, the predeces-
sor of the plantonic philosopher, Har
ris. as Commissioner of Education, and
is edited by Prof. Herbert b. Adams of
the Johns Hopkins University. The
present volume is edited by DIR. Stein
er of the same university, and, unlike
most Government literature. it is we'll
edited and well written. Its merits
do not make its publication any less of
an imposition upon the people Of the
United States. Here is a volume of
331 octave pages, with forty-nine illus
History of Education in Maryland, :"
and gives an interesting and presum-
ably an accurate account of education
in colonial Maryland, of secondary
educational legislation in the State of
Maryland, and of the various unlye. si-
ties and colleges and theological semi
naries that have existed there. or now
exist. All this is matter of value to
historians or students of American edu-
cational history. and the descriptions
of the various institutions of secondary
education will appeal to their gradu-
ates. and in the case of the Johns Hop
kins University, Mount St. Mary's
College, and perhaps others, to con
siderable number of persons outside of
Maryland. The work is one that
might we'll be published at private ex-
pense by patriotic Marylander or a
society of patriotic Marylanders. The
whole series to which it belongs might
be published in New York as a library
of American educational history, a col
lection of monographs on American
education in the various States at vari-
Gus periods. Commissioner Harris is
the editor of an educational library of
a different scope now in course OF pub
lication, and there might be a welcome
for this book and the rest of the series
edited by Prof. Adams, if they were
published by private enterprise and
not at the expense of the people. To
make the people pay for monographs
on the Second University of Maryland,
the seventeen Maryland colleges that
have gone out of business, the Centen-
ary Biblical Institute, the Maryland
Agricultural College. and SO on, is to
tax the whole people for the amuse-
ment or improvement of a few. 1t is
robbery done in the name of education,
and contributing nothing to education. |
The Eureau OF Education has no
legitimate reason for existence. 1t is !
obliged to attempt to justify its exis-
tence by engaging in historical or ped
agogical lucubrations. Education In
the State OF Maryland is no affair of
the United States Government. Any
body in Maryland or out of it who
wishes to write the history of that edu-
cation. is free to do so. and to publish |
his work at his own expense if he can
not find publisher to take the risk. |
The financial condition of the country |
is not SO floarishing that it can afford |
to waste money for purpose that pro-
notes not the general welfare, elastic |