Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1910-03-09

the ugly noises of the crowded, sordid
metropolis they sang the fairest, tenderest
fancies of Shakespeare.
Then there was silence. A pale, fat-chested
Jewish boy lifted a large silk American flag
from its place against the WALL bore it with
solemn step and reverent face to the head of
the middle AISLE dipped it slowly and then
raised it high with gesture of simple pride.
There was something inspiring as well as
pathetic in the young eyes in which the op-
pressed blood of European ghettos looked
through its emancipated heirs upon that sacred
symbol of equity and liberty. The room was
as still as death. Every face earnest.
The young teacher struck another deep
chord from the piano.
At this every right hand was lifted in salute
to the brow and then stretched out toward the
flag, while the boys and girls chanted:
I'VE salute thee! We, the children of many
lands, who find rest under thy folds do pledge
our lives and our hearts to love and protect
thee-our country-and the liberty of the
American people forever"
I have seen the American flag saluted in
many lands and on many seas, but never have
I witnessed greeting that meant so much as
that childish pledge in which one civilization
lovingly surrendered to another
Bitter complaints against the public schools
of the country spurred me out to learn some
thing of the present training of our nearly IT,
100000 school children.
went honestly to condemn came back to
explain and praise.
Nor is there more misrepresented or mis-
understood subject in America than this ques-
ton Of the public schools; and he is a lucky
man who can make the American mothers and
fathers OF to-day realize what is being done to
the American mothers and fathers of to-
morrow.
The business man loudly insists that the
public schools are not what they are intended
to be and are not what they used to be; that
the interest and enthusiasm of both teachers
and pupils are wasted on nature studies, paper
cutting and folding, straw plating, art work,
folk dancing, music, cooking, sewing, and all
manner of fads and frlls, while the essentials
of education, the old fashioned school subjects
grouped together as the ''three Rs" are DELHI
erately neglected.; and that this is an outrage
upon the children and defiance to the tax
payers.
The immensely of the subject may be Judged
by the new report of the United States CON-
missioner of education, which shows that
year ago there were 16,8203S6 pupils enrolled
in the 259,115 common schools of the nation.
with 475,23S teachers.
The yearly expenditure on schools is $780,
68O, 8O1-equal to about third of the whole
expenditures of the national government-and
the value of the school properties reaches the
staggering total of $S43,309,410
The enrolled school children of the United
States almost equal the combined populations
Of Holland, Sweden, Portugal and Greece.
It will be seen that if the education of the
children of the country is drifting into the
hands of doctrinaires and experimentists, and
the practical elements of school training are
being neglected in order that modern pedagogy
may exploit unsound scientific theories, the
matter concerns not only fathers and mothers,
but touches the character of the nation as
whole
Hope for the future of the great republic
rests upon its school children. Never has such
weight Of responsibility been thrown upon
he school house as to-day.
New York, the second city of the world, Is
good field In which to investigate the angry