The Falls City tribune., 1910-04-15

numbered proletariat whom law and
custom as old as the race itself
have made poor, ignorant and degrad-
ed, the less use the community
will have for its jails, prisons and
penitentiaries-for the animal man
must be fed. clothed and housed, and
he will acquire the NEAR to those
ends honestly if he ean-by force or
otherwise if he must.
Whoever has read. or will read,
the history of the French Revolution
may know all that is necessary on
these propositions, and what has
once happened in human affairs, un-
der like conditions will happen again.
Society cannot be judged by its
highest types, but by its lowest. A
cable is no stronger than at its
weakest point. 1t must be taken in
its entirety, and as a whole 1t is no
stronger thar its weakest place:
and the same thing is true of hu,
man society, it is no better than its
worst and most vicious elements. A
house cannot be raised by beginning
at the top. Ii must be raised from
its mud-sills, and then the whole
house will so up. A little more of
the spirit that was breathed upon
the world in an older day in those
words that will never fade from the
memories of men while the world
it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, We have done it unto me,
and a little less of the loud praying
Pharisee, will do something towards
destroying the distinction of caste
and insure a more equitable distrib-
ution of Gods bounties among men
to the manifest advantage of all.
The real Observation-Disclosures per-
haps-of the world-will never be
complete until every man in 1t, AT
all times, and under all cireumstan-
ces has an equal chance in the bat
tie of life with every other a As
things now stand-however much men
deny the fact-the laws govern the
poor, while the rich and the power
full, made so by customs that have
grown into usurpations, govern the
laws. However, this is not exactly
germane to my present purpose, but
may resume the subject at another
time.
It is Characteristic of our Ameri-
can people never to do anything
without OVERRIDING it. This will hold
good in every social and business re-
lation, and it is just as true in our
moral and educational relations.
From no system of schools at the
beginning of the Nineteenth century,
we have little else than schools
and systems Of schools at the be-
ginning of the Twentieth century.
Seventy years ago there was no gem
| eral common school system west of
the Wabash and east of the Mississ-
ippi. There were schools of a sort,
but they were purely private enter
prises. A tramp teacher, self-styled
| of course, would visit a given neigh
borhood or settlement as the phrase
was then, and organize a school in thl
way: He would go from house to
house in a radius of a couple of
miles or SO, from the school house
there was nearly always one in each
ne%ighborhood, and ascertain how
many scholars each family would
| subscribe, at the rate of So or $3.50,
to be paid for each, for a term of
three months, generally in the winter.
If he could get from twenty to TWEEN
ty-five or more with his board thrown
in-he would stay a while at n
house and then at another till he
made the rounds of all his scholars
homes. and so continued to do till
the end of the term-it was d go,
and the school became a fact. Two
or three of the Oldest and generally
most ignorant men in the community
| Htit StlttNtu DuI lOl III pun "iCC
of any law, as school directors, and
they were the supreme authority in
everything pertaining to the school.
from judging of the qualifications of
the teacher, down to the minutest and
most trivial detail of the business.
The teacher was required to be suf-
ficiently learned to teach reading,
writing and arithmetic, and if he
happened to be able to teach
a little grammar it did not detract
from his qualifications to conduct the
school, and this was the curricu-
lum of the peoples colleges, the
common school, and it remains un-
altered to this day, 'eyen in Ne
braska.
For the masses no other education