The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-07-25
Total in round


 numbers ....126,000 46,OO0
 "Of course these counties make proba- ply the poorest showing of any 15 in the state, but they serve to illustrate to an alarming degree the necessity for some plan of bringing the children into the public schools. Certainly the enrolment of the schools in the counties named Is larger than this, but all know that it Is the regular attendants on the schools who derive the benefits.
 Must Force Attendance
 There are only two ways of securing the attendance of these absent pupils attraction and compulsion. We have been trying attraction or persuasion for many years and evidently are making very slow progress. There Is then left a resort to compulsion.
 Tt will be seen from the figures above given that the percentage of average at tendance in the counties named Is only about y, leaving 6S per cent of the white children in those counties out of school These few figures would seem to show beyond cavil the necessity of compulsory attendance laws.
 "On the question of the justification of such laws there might well be assigned four strong reasons:
 '1 The state has the right for the good of society to hang a human being in proper cases. Certainly then. for the same benign purpose. the good of society, she may choose to educate the child
 "2 Every child, not being responsible for coming into the world naturally has a right to a chance at the highest devel- opment of his mental, moral and physi- cal nature.
 g. The tax payer, seeing that he pays his taxes under compulsion and that they are largely used for purposes of educa- tion, has the right to see that the greatest good to the greatest number comes from the use of his money.
 A. The tendency of illiteracy is to per- petuate itself and the law must step in if we are to remove the curse of Hitter acy from the south.
 Plan in General Use.
 Many precedents may be urged for the adoption of this plan. Thirty-seven states and territories have the system in some form or other, and the most progressive states have the strictest laws the subject. Many foreign countries to whom we consider ourselves vastly superior have an excellent system of legislation on this subject
 That such laws work out wisely and well might be proved from the fact that no state or nation which has ever adopt ed such system has repealed 1t. In some countries and states most remarkable eff fects are observed from the operations of these regulations. For instance, in France. the system was adopted in 1882. At that time her percentage of illiteraoy was 31 In 1901. after 19 years trial of the law, the percentage has been reduced to S.
 Tt has been urged that the influx of children into our schools would over crowd them. To this the answer may we'll be made that this result has not been observed to be objection worthy of note in other states There has been no suggestion in Alabama of applying the law in the beginning beyond the age of IA years. beginning at S. This leaves seven years of the school age to which the plan would not apply.
 ."Then too, not more than three months attendance would be wise, probably, in the initiation of the requirements But even If some communities were forced to provide larger and better school houses, this might be urged as an argument in favor of rather than we'll founded ob- jection to the law.
 Must Go Slow. k '.There should also be great latitude in \ the application of the law and considera- . ble discretion vested in some authority as Xto the initiation of prosecutions. We 9jwoulu not at first hope to enforce so and expensive system as f fhat of Illinois and some other states I'm their truant officers. We would be )1 ned te depend on gradually perfecting