The Irish standard., 1906-04-07
EDUCATION AND CRIME.
A Protestant Editor Notes Fact Thai
Something is Wrong.

Before the writer lies Il report of the
National Education Association on
''TaNation as Related to Public Educn-
ton" In The report it, is shown that
Chicago puts !, larger proportion OF it's
tot;, municipal school expenditures
into it's public schools than any other
! leading city in the country. says the
Chicago Advance. IL Congregational
newspaper. Out of {; total expenditure
per year of $50 .Go,66l, no less than
$S.2G3.d03 is spent on the public
schools. This is nearly 81 per cent,
while Boston spends less than II per
cent. New York :, tritlc more than 10
per cent. and Philadelphia and ST.
Louis about 17l per cent.
And vet. With all this heavy expcndi-
ture on the education Of the children
and youth of the city. Chicago is NOW
said To b.. having an epidemic of crime.
Moreover. the n,iorty Of the criminals
are young. mere boys, MANY of them,
anu tncN are llDHle-nllue. l nat is 10
say. Chicago annually spends an
. enormous sum educating its youth. and
then has to spend another big sum
supprcssing them and driving them off
to the refornatories and penitentiaries.
as they grow oder.
The editor of the "ACv;lnce' may be
old fashioned. but =" he is dis
posed to think that it would be better
to read the Bible in school than to be
compelled to read the riot act from the
house tops, as Chicago is now doing
There are men and women who are
seized with horror ut the bare thought
of teaching youth that there is Il wrath
against sin. but is not that better than
to have boys hardly out of their teens
stand before Il Judge while he sen
fences them to be hanged by the neck
until they are dead?
lust now there is great agitation over
dance halls. but the majority of the
young girls who fill these halls and
dance along the edge of ruin are from
the public schools. Would it not be
more sensible to put Bible truth around
them in the process of education than
to try to keep big policeman between
each one Of them and danger? Certain
~ there is something wrong when we
spend our money on education and vet
are compelled to rely on brute force TO-
the protection Of the young.
The report Of the Educational .Asso-
citation also shows that during the year
1903-the latest year Of statistics--the
American people paid in taxation for
school purposes 5000, 110,175, and that
they had invested in school property
$601.571,307. Nearly sixteen million pu-
pills We're taught in the public schools
and by an army OF nearly half
million teachers. These are vast
figures: they arc without parallel any
where else in the world. And yet
the total number of homicides during
the past year was appalling, and even
more startling was the number Of
suicides. Here in Chicago tfirty-nire
suicides We're committed during the
twenty eight days of the beautiful
February which has just closed In
view of such figures ana facts we can
not but ask whether the American peo-
pie are not missing something essential
to human welfare in their system of
education. DO we stir the intellectual
faculties and not the moral faculties?
Do we make the generation smart, but
frctful and impatient of life's trials
ana burdens, instead of wise and self
controlled?