The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1911-07-20
THE HOME COMPULSORY EDCCA-
TION AND GOV. BLEASE.

To the Editor: ''The Stumbling
Stone" for May, published at Everett
Station, Boston, gives a long &C
count of your antagonism to Social
ISM One of the points you Justly
make against it is that it disrupts the
home and parental authority. So does
compulsory education, as advocated
by people of all classes. Public
schools and compulsory education
are planks in the Socialists plat
form. But We find club women, the
Congress Of Mothers, the D. A. R., the
patriotic orders, and even some
Catholics fighting for both.
Socialism is based on the public
schools. 1t says give the child State
education and you prepare the way
for it to demand everything else at
the hands of the State. There is of
late an inclination on the part OF
club women to force compulsory ed
ucation upon every State of the
South. Georgia lately repudiated it,
so did South Carolina Gov. Coleman
l.. Blease, of the latter State, has
come out in thorough denunciation
OF the tyranny. Let me introduce you
to him on the subject. In part, he
says:
II am absolutely opposed to COM
pulsory education. Compulsory edu-
cation in the hands of the State
means the disruption of the home.
for it dethrones the authority of the
parents and places the paid agents of
the State in control of the children,
thereby destroying family govern
&c etc
the child and the parent-they repre-
sent the State-they are not respons-
ible to the parents. They impress
upon the minds Of the children the
view Of the State and virtually say:
I'VE have taken you out of bondage
and made you free; we are giving
you what your unnatural parents
would not give you.
No child on earth can be subject
to such influences and teachings and
escape imbibing the spirit of rebel
lion against parental authority and
consequent disrespect and ingrati-
tude. Children are too easily infect
ed with the idea that their parents
owe them everything, while they owe
them nothing in return, and with the
design and law of God set at def
ance, who can compass, by the widest
stretches of the most gigantic mind,
the condition that will follow? We
desire to see the standard of educa-
ton raised in South Carolina. We
want every boy and girl in the State
to have every possible opportunity to
gain for themselves the very best
and highest degree Of equipment for
life; but we do not want it at the
cost of parental authority and the
peace of the home.
Family government and parental
responsibility antedate all others,
and it is possible for wild, extrava-
CANT and madly enthusiastic men,
who see theory and theory only, to
destroy family government, ALLEVIATE
children from their parents and force
the home into q scene of strife, re-
bellion and Indebtedness. The Bible
says great deal about obediance to
parents and reverence for parents,
and, believing in that Book and it's
teachings as strongly as l do, and for
the sake of our children, our country
and for the future, believe in letting
the parents keep within their oWn-
control the rearing and education of
their children
There we have it! Great is Gov.
Blease of South Carolina! After 40
years he is the first Governor to Join
me in full force against the compul-
sorry devastation; but Gov. Mann of
Virginia, and Gov. Sanders of Louis
lana, also opposed it.
A GEORGIA READER.