The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1899-04-22

whether they were wicked or good
There were two wrong things abou
Jcphthah's vow. First, he ought neve
to have made It. Next, having made il
il were better broken than kept. Bu
do not take on pretentious airs and say
81 could not have done as Jephthal
did" II In former days you had beer
standing on the banks OF the Gange
and you had been born in India, yoI
might have thrown your children e
the crocodilcs. II is not because we ar,
naturally any better, but because W;
have more Gospel light.
Now | make very practical use o
this question when | tell you that tn,
sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter was {
| type of the physical, mental and spirit.
ual sacrifice of 10000 children in this
day. There are parents all inviting
| ly bringing to bear upon their children
IL class of influences which will as GER
tainly ruin them MS knife and torch de-
stroyed Jcphthah's daughter. While
| speak, the whole nation, without emo
| ton and without shame, looks upon the
| stupendous sacrifice.
In the first place, remark that much
Of the system of education in our day
is u system of sacrifice. When children
spend six or seven hours in school and
then must spend two or three hours in
preparation for school the next day,
will you tell me how much time they
will have for sunshine and fresh air
and the obtaining of that exuberance
which is necessary for the duties of
coming life? No one can feel more
thankful than do for the advancement
of common school education. The
printing of books appropriate for
schools, the multiplication of philo-
sophical apparatus, the establishment
of normal schools, which provide for
our children teachers of largest caliber,
are themes on which every philanthro-
pist ought to be congratulated. But
this herding of great multitudes of
children in ill-ventilatcd schoolrooms
and poorly equipped halls of instruction
is making many of the places of knowl-
edge in this country huge Holocaust.
Politics in many of the cities gets into
educational affairs and while the two
political parties are scrabbling for the
honors Jcphthah's daughter perishes.
1t is so much so that there are many
schools in the country to-day which are
preparing tens of thousands of invalid
men and women for the future; so that,
in many places, by the time the child's
education is finished the child is fin
ishcd. In many places, in many cities
of the country, there are large, appro-
priations for everything else and cheer
iul appropriations, but as soon as the
appropriation is to be made for the cdu-
cational or moral interests of the city
we are struck through with an economy
that is well-nigh the death of us.
In my parish in Philadelphia little
child was so pushed at school that she
was thrown into fever, and in her
dying delrium, all night long, she was
trying to rccite the multiplication ia
BILE. In my boyhood remember that in
our class Mt school there was ono lad
who knew more than all of us put to-
gether. If we were fast in our arith-
mctic, he eXtricated us. When we stood
up for the spelling class, he was almost
always the head of the class Visitors
came to his fathers house, and he was
always brought in as n prodigy. At IS
years of age he was an idiot. He lived
ten years an idiot and died an idiot,
not knowing his right hand from his
left or day from night. The parents and
the teachers made him an idiot.
You may futter your pride by forcing
your child to know more than any other
children, but you are making sacri-
flee of that child if by the additions to
its intelligence you are making ii sub
traction from its future. The child will
go away from such maltreatment with
10 exubcrance to fight the battle of
life. Such children may get along very
well while you take care of them, but,
when YOU are old or dead, alas for
them if through the wrong system of
education which you adopted they
have no swarthiness or force of charac-
ter to take care of themselves! BE care
full how you make the child's head ache
or it's heart hutter. / hear great deal
about black mans rights, and China
mans rights, and Indians rights, and
woman's rights. Would to God that
somebody would rise TO plead for chill
dren's rights! The Carthagians used
to sacrifice their children by putting
them into the arms of an idol which
thrust forth its hand. The child was
put into the arms of the idol, and no
sooner touched the arms than it dropped
into the fire. But it was the art of the
mothers TO keep the children smiling
and laughing until the moment they
died. There may be fascination and
n hilarity about the styles of education
of which am speaking, but it is only
laughter at the moment of sacrifice.
Would to God there were only one
daughter!
Again, there are many parents who
are sacrificing their children with
wrong system of discipline--too great
rigor or too great leniency. There are
children in families who rule the house
hold The high chair in which the in
FAINT sits is the throne, and the rattle is
the scepter, and the other children
make up the parliament where father
and mother have no vote! Such chill
dren come up to be miscreants. There
4, f,x,. child