The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1911-02-23

Editorial, New York Evening Jour
nal, January 20, 1911.
In "The Survey" Clarence A. Perry
supplies interesting information and
makes important suggestions concern
ing the public schools and their
uses.
The greatest institution in the world
is the public school.
The greatest enemy of superstition
and ignorance, and the poverty and
suffering born of superstition and
ignorance, is the American public
school.
one thousand millions of dollars is
about the amount invested in the pub
lie schools of America. This does not
include the many millions spent every
year for salaries of teachers, for books
and other school expenses.
The public schools are idle, unused,
on an average about siXty-onc hours
out of every hundred hours For, rs a
rule, the magnificent school buildings
of the great cities and the picturesque
and beautiful smaller schools of the
country are used only during the short
school hours.
The schools, as we have often point
ed out in this newspaper, should
everywhere be centres of social life,
They should be used outside Of school
hours for the amusement of children,
for meetings, discussions and instruc-
tion of one another by grown people in
the evenings, on holidays and sun
days.
The people pay for these schools
not the rich people, who imagine they
pay because their property is taxed,
but the little people, whose wages
make property worth money and who
pay the rents that make it possible to
pay taxes on real property.
The thousand millions Of dollars in
vested in public schools represents
money contributed by the small people
And that great investment should be
made as useful as possible to the mass
of the population.
Public schools should be centres Of
amusement and of intellectual activity
for the old and the young. They
should be centres in which patriotism
intelligent patriotism is deyevelop-
ed.
Fortunately here and there right
beginning has been made. Sam Jones.
the admirable Mayor of Toedo-th
man against whom the Democrats and
Republicans united and who beat both
of the parties-was successful and
loved by the people largely because he
realized the value Of the public schools,
and made them centres for happy
gatherings in the evening.
In Rochester admirable work has
been done to make the public schools
useful to the fullest extent
In Lexington, Ky, and elsewhere,
intelligent women are planning to
make the schoolhouses at night, play
centres for the children The idea is
to keep the children oil the streets, to
amuse them, to associate the school
room in their minds with happiness
and unalloyed pleasure.
In days to come the perfected public
schools will be as important at night
as in the daytime. The Fairgrounds
and public parks surrounding them
will be centres othappiness. Children
will be taught in the daytime, and men
and women, with earnest discussion,
study and lectures, will teach one an
other and be taught at night.
The great property Of the people OF
this country is that investment Of a
thousand millions in schools. Here.
after that Investment will be multi
piled many times over, and thus will
be multiplied the only real wealth oi
the people, which Is knowledge.