The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-05-31
Honor 70 THE SCHOOLS


clared that America had already become
tho book-buying center of the world and
added that thea future would only empha-
size our literary independence: that the
United States was becoming better edu-
Gated every year and that England still
was bad for the masses.
Commenting on this statement, Sydney
Brooks, the well-known English journal
list, writes to- the New York Commercial
Advertiser:
In this he was perfectly right Englishrnen
are not in earnest about education; English
women, perhaps, are even lees SO. It COM
plicates the great servant problem; in fact,
1t has already done so; the cook "has ideas
above her station; the housenlaid no longer
knows her place; the butler is a great d1el
too. Independent. y The English millionaire
will, willingly leave his money to charity, but
the claims of education do not interest him.
Continuing. MIR: Brooks says that oas
hardly realizes the standard Of intelli-
gence to which the public school system
has raised America until one has the OPP
portunity of comparing it with that CT
England Mr.. Brooks makes the COMPARE
son on the basis of the literature read
by the corresponding classes of the two
countries. The American yellow journal
is an intellectual paradise compared to
the whole group Of papers read by the
English masses; most Of them illustrat-
ed. that deal exclusively with society
scandal and gossip; CHASTITY. unspeakable
comic papers, brain-sapping productions
OF the Tit-Bits order. Their name is
legion. their readers every one from the
middle class downwards.' Is 1.-The
sensatioralism of the worst of the Amer
lean papers is preferable by far. to this
cloggy, sickly mass -
Continuing fault-flndins with his own
countrymen, which is SO meekly and ha-
bitually done in England nowadays, Mr..
Brooks says that the reading public in
England is so restricted that a circula-
ton of 5000 for a new novel is considered
splendid, land novels dominate here far
more than in America" Mr. Brooks thus
sums UP. the difference between the two
nations: ~ -
Intellectual curiosity is the natural trait Of
the United States, just as intellectual inertia
Is ct England. The reading public here is
q class to itself, not, as IN America, coexten-
sive with the nation. 49,, e .- ~ Z
1t is perhaps not So generally recog-
nized as 1t should be that American sue
cess in commerce, industry, book making
and book-using is primarily due more to
the blessed public : school system
than any other cause. 1t Is the.
fashion just now to abdse the public
schools, and scold the teachers and talk,
about fads and waste Of time and unac-
complished educational purposes. But
as proof of what the schools have done
and as a sign Of what they can do, there
stands the intelligence of America. No
other country in the whole world has
such generally Intelligent public, such
a reading public as America has, and this
Notwithstanding the fact that our popu-
lation is racially Heterogeneous and much
of it but one generation removed from il
Nteracy. The public schools Of the ma
ton, which with all their faults are great
fountains Of instruction. training, 'inspi-
ration and aspiration, have made the ma
tion what it is intellectually. They have
world on the average. -
What our public schools have done for
the average the universities which are
only public schools Of q higher degree,
will soon accomplish for the fortunate
minority. The time is fast approaching
yu y,y,t- oIy h
there will be q vastly larger proportion
Of Americans Of high education than there
are persons of high education in any other
country $3.50 r..
To superior average we are about to
add superior maximum.
The public school system applied to the
highest walks Of learning Is to win yet
more 1aurels for America
For eighty years, at least, it has been
considered in this country the duty of the
state to educate the children. In return
for performing that duty the educated
people have made the state the greatest
compact nation in the world. There are
still sco1ers at high schools and uni-
versities, but they are making good their
right to existence lust as surely as the
public schools have done so. M.
The teachers Of america are, after all,
making the country more thaneiron mas
tiers and steel workers. more than kings
Of transportation, more. than the lords
Of mining, more than trust creators, more
than presidents and statesmen are maxi
lit. All of these work with materials and
direct the men who use those materials.
The teachers make them and their men.