Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1903-12-30
T. Educational
Public and Private Schools.

Ihere nave appeared recently some
signs of Dissatisfaction with the
system of public schools in our coun-
try, the charge against them being
"that the schools do not teach religion,
and that religion is necessary to
character" Cardinal Gibbons, the
head of the Roman Catholic Church
in the United States, is credited with
having criticised the public schools
on this point; and q Protestant
minister of New York says: eve
are bringing up all over this broad
landa lusty set of young pagans,
who sooner or later, they or their
children, will make havoc of our
institutions. Lyrchers, labor agitators,
and law breakers generally are human
guideposts, with arms, hands, and
fingers wide-extended and voices at
their loudest, pointing us to the ruin
which awaits society if we persevere
in the road which we are now taking"
In view of these charges The Outlook
IN. W sent inquiries to the presi-
dents of various colleges throughout
the country, asking if in the institu-
tions over which they preside "any
difference is noticeable in the moral
character of young men who come
from the public schools and that of
those who come from UNCONVENTIONAL,
church, or other private schools" In
its issue of November it publishes
the replies of nineteen presidents.
One reports that "there is no noticea-
BILE difference in the moral character
but we do notice a difference in
the moral quality" Two others have
no data on which to base reply.
The other sixteen are unanimous in
testimony that the character produced
by the training of the public school
is equal in moral and religious tone
to that produced by other schools.
The strength and virtue of our
schools, public and private, consists
not in the teaching OF any creed, but
in the instilling into the pupils of
those moral qualities which over
reach all doctrine, and which make
for upright living. A great teacher
once said, 81 would not walk across
this room to make a Methodist" But
the same teacher has spent his life in
trying to help men to righteousness
of life. What our country needs is
not to abolish public schools, but
even to multiply them, and to see to
it that every man and woman who ls
given charge over group of children
as teacher shall live that righteous
life which we covet for the citizen
ship of our land. There is woeful
Indifference on the part of parents
and trustees in many communities as
to the moral tone of the teacher
whom they are to employ. An ntidel,
a ertic, an irreligious person, an
Indifferent, can hardly cultivate in
the pupils those deep qualities which
lie at the base of every well-founded
and we'll poised life. Goethe makes
one of the characters in his great
novel, Wilhelm Meister, say, "One
thing there is, however, which no
child brings into the world with him
and yet it is on this one thing that
all depends for making man in every
point man." This one thing is
Rcveren: n:e-reverence on the part of
the child for things above it and
things beneath it and things about it.
The child is more deeply impressed
by what the teacher says and does
than by what he teaches while he is
in the chair.-The Educational.