The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1895-11-27
STEVENS
GREAT SPEECH
It WAS MADE IN THE INTEREST
OF FREE SCHOOLS.
How the Great Commoner Saved the
Public School System in the Leg
islature on April IL, 1885,
Just Sixty Years Ago.

/ From the Lancaster Inquirer.
In 1884 the Legislature of Pennsylva-
mia, impressed by the fact that out of
400, 900 children in the State only l50,-
900 attended school, instituted the pres
ent beneficen. system of free education,
wiping out forever that stigma of pau
perism which had up to that time rem
dered ineffective legislation on this
subject There were but three votes
against the bill in the House and one
/ in the Senate. But throughout the
State sentiment was very different.
The result was unforeseen. a tidal
wave of rage and indignation swept
over the Commonwealth.
All summer long the fight ragged fu-
riously, and as election time approach
ed the contest was bitter. Families
were divided. Banners inscribed with
"No Free Schools" were frequently
seen. Meetings were held To consider
the repeal of the bill and the majority
of the candidates owed their election TO
their avowed hostility to popular edu-
cation and their promise TO vote for
repeal. Candidates who had voted for
this bill and who refused to Withdraw
their support failed of reelection.
The Legislature of 1885 assembled,
animated by the ignoble purpose of
making any education impossible for
| two-thirds of the children in the State.
save by registration as paupers. The
members were overwhelmed with petit
/ tions and memorials for the repeal of
/ the bill creating the common schools,
and it is hard To realize that petitions
were seriously presented and defended
which contained the names of men
signed with a mark. The petitions
against the repeal of the bill numbered
but 40, containing 2,575 names, while
for repeal there were 55S, containing
| 81 ,9SS names. The fact that unive rsal
education was more of Il necessity in a
republic than elsewhere was los: sight
| of, so alarmed were most of the re-
monstrants at the idea of taxation for
this subject.
From the beginning of March, 1885,
to mid-April the petitions poured in {;
at last on the eleventh the Senate had
repealed the bill, and it was before the
House for debate. Speech after speech
was delivered, all for the repeal of the
| bill, picturing how 'the honest hard
working man, aided by his children's
labor, was ground down by taxation TO
educate his shiftless neighbor's chill
dren."
One argument deserves tn be quoted
entire: Free schools are the hot-beds
wherein idle drones, too lazy for honest
labor, are reared and maintained. The
free school system was originated and
supported by its partisans for the pur-
pose of making places for men too lazy
| to work, and the school tax is a thinly
disguised tribute which the honest,
Woodworking farmers and mechanics
have to pay out of their hard earnings
TO pamper idle and lazy school masters"
There was one man listening To the
proceedings who was neither u dema-
gogue nor u coward. That man was
Thaddeus Stevens. His home was
then in Gettysburg and he represented
Adams county I'm the Assembly.
Stevens never forgot the poverty of
his boyhood. Crippled as he was he
knew how terribly handicapped he
would have been had he not received
| free that excellent education which
made fortune and fame possible. He
would not only have placed education
within the reach of every child, but he
would have enacted if possible ''that
no father or guardian should be per-
mitted to vote who had not caused one
half of his children or wards, or if he
have but one, that one TO attend school
during eight months of the years they
are entitled to attend school,"
On that day of April rs he listened to
those speeches pleading for and threat
ening a repeal Of the law making a
general education possible in the great
Commonwealth OF Pennsylvania we
ma imagine what he thought. This
is, in part, what he said:
/ will briefly give you the reasons
why l shall oppose the repeal of the
school law. This was passed at the last
session of the Legislature with unex-
exampled unanimity, but one member
of this House voting against it. Ii has
not yet come into operation, and none
of its effects have been tested by ex-
perience in Pennsylvania. The pas
sage of such law is enjoined blythe
Constitution, and has been recommend
ed by every Governor since its adop-
ton. Much to his credit, it has been
warmly urged by the present Executive
i'm all his annual messages delivered at
the opening of the Legislature. To re-
peal it now, before its practical effects
have been discovered, would argue that
it contained some glaring and perni-
cious defect, and that the last Legisla-
| ture acted under some strong and fatal