The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1899-04-21

they must execute them, perform them,
whether they were wicked or good.
There were two wrong things about
Jephthah's VOW. First, he ought never
to have made it, Next, having made IT,,
it were better broken than kept But
do not take on pretentious airs end say:
81 could not have done as Jephthah
did" If in former days you had been
standing on the banks of the Gauges
and you had been born in India, you
might have thrown your children to
the crocodiles. 1t is not because we are
naturally any better, but because we
have more Gospel light.
Now | make very practical use of
this question when / tell you that the
sacrifice of Jcphthah's daughter was a
type of the physical. mental and spirit
ual sacrifice of 10000 children i'm this
day. There are parents all inviting
ly bringing to bear upon their children
IA class of influences which will as GER
tainly ruin them as knife and torch de-
stroyed Jephthah's daughter. While l
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 a system of sacrifice. When children
spend six or seven hours i'm school and
then must spend two or three hours in
preparation for school the next day,
will YOU tell me how much time they
win 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 cnliber,
are themes on which every philGnthro-
pist ought to he congratulated. But
this herding of great multitudes of
children in ill-ventilated schoolrooms
and poorly equipped halls of instruction
is making many of the places of knowl-
edge I'm this country Il huge holocaust.
Politics i'm many of the cities gets into
educational affairs and while the two
political parties are scrabbling for the
honors Jephthah's daughter perishes.
1t is so much so that there are many
schools i'm 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
ished! In many places, in many cities
of the country, there are large appro-
priations for everything else and cheer
full appropriations, but as soon as the
appropriation is to be made for the edu-
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 a little
child was so pushed ut school that she
was thrown into fever, and in her
dying delirium, all night long, she was
trying to recite the multiplication TIA
BILE. In my boyhood remember that in
our class at school there was one lad
who knew more than all of us put to-
gether. If we were fast in our arith-
metic, 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 prodigy. At IS
years of age he was an idiot. lie 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 flutter your pride by forcing
your child to know more than any other
children, but you are making n sacri-
flee of that child if by the additions to
its intelligence you are making sub
traction from its future. The child will
go away from such maltreatment with
no eXuberdnce 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 its heart tlutter. hear a great deal
mans rights, and Indians rights, and
woman's rights. Would to God that
somebody would rise TO plead for chill
drens rights The Carthagans 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 this
mothers to keep the children smiling
and laughing until the moment they
died. There may be fascination and
hilarity about the styles of education
of which l am speaking, but it is only
laughter at the moment of sacrifice
Would TO God there were only one
Jephthah's 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