The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1899-07-13
COUNTRY TRAINING SCHOOLS.

State Journal is devoting some editoria
comment and in approving serain-t,
the Country Training School establishe,
in Marathon county The Pilot take
exception however, to The Journal
statement that it The JournaD is th'
only paper outside of Marathon county
To express interest in this educationa
movement. The Pilot has written on
readers. ever since 1893. and claims fol
Manitowoc county the honor of giving
birth to the idea though Marathon coun
ty nursed the bantling to adolescence,
and Manitowoc county cheerfully sur
renders all claim on the honor to the
county VIII put the plan in practice
and which it is sill cerely hoped will profit
in having done So
But it is not a question of priority in
inception The duty of newspapers now
is to urge a general acceptance of the
plan. 1t cannot fail to prove of great
benefit to popular education. The people
of Wisconsin are not sufficiently mind
full of the fact that education is under
going transition similar to what is
taking place in industrial lines. The
change is so gradual that only interested
and close observers can detect it. The
change wrought already is great, though
it is shown more i'll weakened purpose
in rural districts than in the line of
contamination The country schools
are being sacrificed to the Moloch
of higher education. They are sinking
to the standard of the mediocre attend
ant and are being robbed of the bright
pupils who gave them standing and in
spired them with purpose. The middle
classes in the field of intelligence as de-
determined by early education, are i'll
state of decay and we are coming to a
stage, educationally, which history has
proved to be the worst possible condition
socially, of two classes, the highly educa-
ted AID the ignorant
The writer may be pardoned for quot
ing from an address by him last year in
which an effort was made to impress
upon the people a sense of the danger
pending in this connection:
City schools welcome the country pu-
pill who has broken through the narrow
environments of his home life. If he is
an inspiration to the city schools what
would not his aspirations and purpose
be to the school he deserted? In the
early days he forced the school up to his
standard. Now by deserving it he at
taches to it the standard of mesiocrity
This process of segregation is sapping
the life blood of the country school The
ambitious and worthy are withdrawing
before their time and their influence is
lost where it is most needed. The proc
ess of elimination is on the increase,
and the spoliation is heralled as sign
of progress. The parent who desires to
give his child educational advantages
beyond the ordinary, rarely seeks to ere
ate these advantages at home, but takes
those offered ell ewhere and his purpos.
has i'll it no contribution of local benefit.
City papers rarely give attention to
country schools and papers in the small |
er cities usually limit discussion to top
les treated in the larger papers There
Is absolutely no knowledge extant con
corning our country schools, in circles |
which shape thought ON public matters
Our glorious system of education is laud- |
ed as custom imposed by sense of pa
triotic duty, while a blight is settling
down ON the schools which merit most
attention if general diffusion of intelli- !
gence is desirable in country in which |
the people are sovereign. There is the
limpness of growing decay in rural |
schools which will develop into paralysis
If the proper corrective is not applied. |
The city newspapers as guardians of the
public welfare, have duty with refer !
ence to country schools which should be |
discharged with feelings of lively inter
est because it is dealing with the deep |
of the. social fabric the |
common people, for whom friendship is |
professed when their prejudices can be
turned to account They need cultivu-
ton for their own betterment because |
upon their intelligence depends ultim !
ately the integrity and permanence of
political institutions whose stability |
makes popular government not only
possible but tolerable.
Pardon is again asked for an additional |
excerpt from the address before referred |
to because of its pertinence to the point
Slnder discussion;
1T is the general intelligence of the
people in which the state is chiefly inter
ested. not the average of extremes. 1t
is the function of the common schools
t. furnish means for the attainment of
this knowledge. Are they fulfilling their
mission satisfactorily and increasing
their efficiency in proportion to the in
creased participation of the humber citi
zens i'll public affairs 1t must be I'M
derstood that today the voice of the peo
pie reaches the halls of legislation much
more easily than it did 40 years ago. and