The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1899-01-07
Why Go to School for Only Two or
Three Months?

In The advocate of September 10,
1898, | pointed out the great responsibility
of parents in the matter of educating their
children. Now in the beginning Of this
year of grace 1899 there are few sus-
gestions | would fain offer the children
themselves, or, perhaps better, the entire
school population of the county. Some,
possibly many. to whom the public schools
stand wide open this winter will, for one
reason or another, not be found at school at
all Perhaps they have always regarded
the school as mild sort Of tyranny, and
now that they have grown old enough to
have some voice in the direction of their
own lives, they at once decide against the
school and in favor Of what they may be
pleased to call the freedom of home How
many boys and girls just growing to young
manhood and young womanhood in Carroll
county are saying to themselves this win
ter, What : the use of my going to school
now +? | can have so much better time at
home, besides what good can two months
in school do, with nothing but work, work,
work after that for the rest of my life
Never did a more specious deception
come into the head of boy or girl than
that. On the other hand here are two
reasons why every person within the school
age ought to be in school this winter.
l. You owe il 10 yourself There was
day when education was possible for the
wealthy alone, but happily that day is long
past Yes. and still more may be said.
Where the life and activities of the world
at large were at no very remote day all OPP
posed to education, now those same forces
all urge YOU with the irresistible logic of
events TO learn, learn, learn. You are in
terested in knowing about your own imme-
diate ueighborhood; what is the education
offered 10 you by the schools if it Is not a
knowledge Of that larger neighborhood of
which you are as certainly part, namely,
the world? Since you cannot any more
keep from being citizen of the world than
you can keep from being member of your
own community, you will be handicapped
and sadly at disadvantage in the stern bat
tie of life without at least some elementary
knowledge of this larger neighborhood, the
world.
Life is journey that will present many
difficulties, but none, perhaps, which has
not been already solved by somebody.
Education puts you in the way of pro6ting
BY the triumphs of Others over the very
same difficulties which confront you-ofiers
YOU the key to the experience of the human
race. Manifestly you owe it to yourself to
attend school, study diligently, and thus
add to your life in little effort what cost
the first learners in the hard school Of ex-
perience years Of toll and bitter disappoint
ment.
, You owe it to the state What is
the state? Clearly it is the people, You
are. therefore, whether you will or not, a
part Of the state. And Of course no state
can be better than its people If, then,
/ it is in your power to add ever so little to
YOUR knowledge of the world experience
of the laws Of your own nature and Of the
world, manifestly YOU owe it TO the state to
do 20. Boy or girl though you be, who
can bestow greater blessing upon the
community than it has been given you to
do in furnishing the state with oas ,oeH
e,lacafcd citizen ? Is not that an object
worth little sacrifice on your part
Would not that make the leadership Of the
misehievous gang seem utterly mean and
unworthy? Tsmpus fagd.
G. WASHINGTON.