Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-04-17

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 and say,
81 could not have done as Jephthah
did If in former days you had been
standing on the banks of the Ganges
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 I make very practical use Of
this question when l tell you that the
sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter was
type of the physical mental and spirit
ual sacrifice Of ten thousand children
in this day. There are parents all un
Willingly bringing to bear upon their
children class of influences which will
as certainly ruin them as knife and
torch destroyed Jephthah's daughter.
While / speak, the whole nation, with
out emotion and without shame, looks
upon the stupendous sacrifice.
In the first place, remark that much
is 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 I 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 i'll ventilated 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 Jephthah's daughter perishes
It is so much so that there are many
schools in the country today 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.
Danger of Overstudy.
In connection with this [ mention
what I might call the examining system
of the common schools and many of the
academies; children of delicate brain
compelled to tasks that might appall a
mature intellect; children going down
to school with a strap of books half as
high as themselves. The fact is in some
of the cities parents do not allow their
children to graduate for the simple
reason, they say, eve cannot afford to
allow our children's health to be de-
stroyed in order that they may gather
the honors of an institution. Tens of
thousands of children educated into i'm
becility, so that connected with many
such literary esta blishments there ought
to be asylums for the wrecked. 1t is
push and crowd and cram and stuff
and jam until the childs intellect is be-
wildered and the memory is ruined and
the health is gone. There are children
who once were full of romping and
laughter and had cheeks crimson with
health who are now turned out in the
afternoon pale faced, irritated, asth>
matte, old before their time. Tt is one
of the saddest sights on earth, an old
mannish boy or an old womanish girl.
Girls 10 years Of age studying algebra!
Boys - years of age racking their brain
over trigonometry Children unac-
quainted with their mother tongue cry
ing over their Latin, French and Ger
man lessons All the vivacity of their
nature beaten out of them by the heavy
beetle of Greek lexicon And you doc
tor them for this, and you give them a
little medicine for that, and you won
der what is the matter of them. I will
tell you what is the matter Of them.
They are finishing their education
In my parish ia Philadelphia a little
child was SO pushed at school that she
was thrown into fever, and in her
dying delirium, all night long, she was
trying to recite the multiplication ia
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 cur 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 a prodigy. At 1S
years of age he was an idiot. He lived |
ten years an idiot and died an idiot,
l. l. IL L e