The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1909-07-03
BARTHOLDT TALKS
ON EDUCATION
charaeterizes Lack of Political Educa.
tion As a Sin of
Omission.
BY Associated Press.

New York, July 3.-Representatiye
Richard Bartholdt of Missouri, spoke
to the National German-American
Teachers convention here today on
the subject of Political Education"
Congressman Bartholdt said that all
were agreed that the brains of our
school children should not be weigh
ed down with unnecessary ballast, but
in determining the question of what
was necessary and what was not great
mistakes were made. There might
be too much of a good thing, and there
might also be too little, he said and
from our present course of study he
could cite examples of both. AS an
ILLUSTRATION he pointed to the instruc-
tion of physiology which he denounc-
ed as objeotional because of its tend
ency to subyert scientific facts for a
purpose. To be unobjectionable he
said. hygenic instruction should never
go beyond an effort to warn from ex-
vesses of all kinds.
On the other hand the speaker
characterized the lack of political edu-
cation in our public schools as a sin
of omission. In monarchy, he said,
where the first simplest political
truths the speaker referred to the as
founding spread of prohibition. If the
masses of the people, he said, were
conscious of the existence of those
inalienable individual rights which
even majorities must respect as in
violable, prohibition could have never
made any headway at all. To be sure,
in order to enable us to live in peace
full communities, individuals had to
give up part of their natural rights
but such renunciation, even in des
potic states, would never be extended
to actions which were neither wrong
nor immoral in themselves and which
would not interfere with the rights of
our neighbors. Whenever this well
defined line was transgressed, either
by legislatures or majorities, liberty
was deprived of its essence and re-
manned only in name The conse-
quence would be that one thing was
being regulated by law today, another
thing tomorrow, and thus violence
was done to the very foundation of
the state whose complete collapse
would be only question of time.
In conclusion the speaker argued
that it was an easy matter to enlight-
en- our youths on those simple ques-
tions, and it was high time for our
teachers to fill this gaping void in our
course of study in the interest of an
intelligent progress and of the perpet-
uity of our free institutions. THE
German Schoolmaster" he exclaimed, |
" has won the Franco-German war.
May the future historian record the |
fact that the German-American teach |
er has saved our democratic liberty. |
duty is to obey, instruction as to the |
rights and duties of citizenship might |
not be essential, but in a republic such |
instruction was an indispensable nee
essity because the welfare of the |
country depended upon an intelligent |
exercise of the franchise. AS a means |
of its self-preservation it was the duty |
of democratic state to equip the pros
pective citizen with the intellectual |
means to vote intelligently. All our
political ills could easily be traced to
a lack of political enlightenment The
press was doing much as an educa-
tional factor, but the real work of in
our youths as to the funda-
mental principles of government and
the extent and value of our inherited |
liberty should begin at school so that
each graduate as he enters life may /
understand what he owes
the state and what the state owes
him.
AS an evidence of what he termed
the gross ignorance with respect to
fhp