The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-28

The same as you have done.
No doubt the starry universe
Could promptly fill its date
And find that it was none the worse
If you should eHligrate.
You need the world While you are nefes
No matter what you do;
Its need for you is not SO clear,
Chicago News.
Schools in France.
The din of battle between church
and state in France will undoubtedly
sound for many years to come. Just
now the conflict RACES about the per-
son of the humble schoolmaster, ex-
cept that humble does not apply to
the French schoolmaster as it does
to every other schoolmaster on earth.
Some one has said that Frenchman
with an idea is one of the most terrific
forces in nature. And inevitably the
school teacher in France is as much
exposed to the ravages of the idea as
any class of citizens. The dominant
, ideas in France at the present day are
clericaliSm and anticlericalism, mill
tarisrn and antimilitarisn, trade I'M
ionisn among government employees,
and the denial of the right to strike.
All of them have found concrete ex-
preston in the scl1oolroom. A some
what parallel situation would be in
New York il our public school teach
ers, instead of filling the newspaper
columns with demands for equal or
higher pay, were to be accused of
spreading the doctrines of tariff revi-
sion or woman suffrage among their
pupils.
The situation in the French schools
| is complicated. First stands the ques-
ton of the public schools versus the
clerical schools. Since. Jules Ferry be-
gan the campaign for the ecole laiQue
| in the early eighties of the last GEN.
fury the movement has been steadily
toward the public school and away
from the church school. The move
| ment was fastened by the campaign
against the Conversational schools
waged after 1902 by Premier Combes.
| 1t has been forwarded by the events
that have followed the separation of
church and state. At the present day
! the public elementary schools have
about 100000 pupils. the Congre-
| gational schools have a little less than
| 1,250,000. and the public schools are
the faster growing. This is the ideal
| of the ecole laique, and it is support
ed by the vast majority of French
men. There is a strong party which
| tional teaching and comforting on the
state the monopoly" of education.
But the bulk of moderate opinion
with the present French government
is in favor of letting events take their
| course
| But the PUBIC ScnQOl NeCOl6 ldlQu0
is one thing and the principle of neu-
trail teaching (neutralite scolaire) is
another. Neutral teaching decides
| that if religious instruction has nc
place in the schools, antireIigious in
struction is equally out of place. And
it is of the violation of the: principle
of neutrality that the church accuses
| the schoo1masters of France acting
under dominant s.Freemasonic' in
fuences. Many Frenchmen who are
Il. 1t --axt.
the lay school are with the church
Fin protesting against the disse1nina-
ton of anti-religious views in the ele-
n1entary schools. And, further still
many Frenchmen who are not with
the church on either question, never
| theless. find that the principle of neu-
trail instruction is being violated by
schoolmasterS who teach antipatriot-
ism, class-hatred, and revolutionary
trade unionism. In short, the French
scho olmaster~ seems to have laid him
self open to the same charge on which
Socrates was sentenced to drink hem
lock.
!, Sean Louis Forain's mordant car
ICONS on the subject picture the ex-
IRENE pro-Catholic view. A school
| master is giving a lesson in European
history. He recites, I'm those days
the church having grown very cor.
rupt, a German monk named Luther
p The implication is thai
a French Schoolmaster in teaching
French Catholic school children is
never SO happy as when they can take
a kick at the church and exalt Ger
| many A cartoon by Abel Faivre
shows one of large number of boys
out for a walk with their teacher, tax
ing his hat off to the cure. "Yor
are very nice boy" says the cure
The teacher grunts: HE is my young
est pupil have had him only for 6
! couple of days" In another picture
by Forain somebody asks a little boy
Does your teacher ever mention the
name of God?'' Eyes sir. when hi
Iswears. York Evening Post
Robbing the Sick.
Better than London, better thai
Paris, better than Berlin, better thar
any other large city In the world, New
York looks we'll after it's sick poor
There are free hospitals and dispen
saries by the score. Even in the lux
urious private hospitals there ar
free beds. There are free institution
for the care of contagious diseases
free vaccination, free diptheria serum
There are funds for the care O
tuberculous patients without means
Yet with all this public and privat
charity the hospitals and dispensarie
are constantly taxed to their capacity
A large proportion of the metropol
itan population. self-resp ecting an
; sef-supporting, is able to care 70
itself in times Of health. With illness
however, with the stoppage of wage
. that generally ensues, it often become
entirely impossible to supply medica
care and attention. 1t is for such per
, sons as these that the city's dispen