The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-23
Mr.. SCOTT
REJO|NS
More on Topic Of
General Popular
Education.

Editor Advertiser: / think You are
misinformed about the educational sys-
tenn of Prussia. 1t is true she educated
Prussian children. 1t is also true that
the State made provision for the educa-
ton of what you call alien children, if
such a phrase have any meaning. No
one of her well-drilled policemen stood
at the school house door to prevent any
child from entering, but truant officers
paraded the streets and slums to gather
in waits and strays, to force them to
go to school, though children of Rus
sian, Turkish or Hottentot parentage
Such has been her enlig-tene policy
and practice since Frederick the Greats
time. AS she has been so she is today
She has stood as an exemplar for all the
other German States-indeed for all Eu-
rope The torch of knowledge is held
free in all Germany to all aspirants of
every nation who seek its elevating in
fiuence, to natives and aliens alike, from
the primary school through the univer-
sity, as it is in the Great republic.
Professor Huxley has said that the
chief function of any national system of
education was to act as a selective
process. The State should organize its
system as an educational ladder with
its fool in the gutter and it's topmost
round the university. All need TO be
taught reading and writing and num-
bers. because this is the basis of all fur
Their education. The chosen CD of ma
ture is sometimes found in the hut and
1 II
If a potential Faraday can be found
born in the hut. and the State pay mil
lion of pounds for his thorough educa-
ton, it gets him dirt cheap.
Shall we have a public censor to pre-
side at the birth of every child and to
brand it with the mark of a planta ton
laborer, lawyer, physician, a judge,
a legislator, or a hummer? Who can
tell without some elementary selection
process who will be the captain of in
dustry or an honor to the State in any
way?
Now, Mr.. Editor, / do not wish to
bother you with your over-taxed nerves
about the much-talked-of question wheth-
er the Constitution follows the Flag; 1
should like to raise the question, how
ever, as to whether the Porto Ricans are
aliens. Are they subjects of Spain? Are
they independent? Are they citizens of
the United States, or are they men and
women without country? One thing is
certain-those children of Porto Rican
parentage who come here and are
brought up here and those born here
will be American citizens. We make no
provision for returning them to Porto Ri
CO, to the Fiji Island or to Central Afri-
ca. Shall they grow up in sodden ig-
norance without the ability to read and
write the English language? Perish
such thought as to keeping them in ig-
norance, to be hewers of wood and draw
ers OF water, and to produce wealth for
the benefit of the few! This idea would
have been back number in the Middle
Ages, rather belonging to some long and
extinct dynasty previous to that of Ra-
meses II.
One might be led to infer, Mr.. Editor.
that the children of plantation laborers
are all put through a High School course
Greek, Latin, and the Calculus. AS
matter of fact, of the nearly 1900
children in school in these Islands, so per
cent of them are in the first four years
of the primary grades. There are less
than 100 in a secondary or high school
course under the jurisdiction of the Gov
eminent.
That we are educating. in the United
States, the young out of their proper
sphere, is a wild vagary of few unbal-
anced cranks, or of a very, very few re-
Gently made plutocrats.
We say nothing about the ethics of the
question. | shall not touch on the prom
ises made to the immigrants brought here
for the production of our wealth
Very respectfully,
NJ NJ. SCOTT.