The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-05-26
THE PUCLIC SCHOOL.
lit Has Made Our Civilization the Greatest the World
Has Ever Mmown---the Old Civilization Ram to
Art, Ours to the Mechanical Sciences
Ashland, Neb., May II, 1911.
Editor Ocala Banner:

People are often heard to marvel at
the wonderful progress of chemical
science, and of the development of the
latent power inherent in many mys-
ferrous forces of nature during the
nineteenth century
Truly, the development of those
forces, an their application to the me-
chanical sciences for the utility of
man, has been wonderful. Men have
certainly accomplished more along
these lines of progress during the one
hundred years just past than they had
in all the thousands of years that
| went before.
Why was this? Was it, as many
appear to think, that the men of the
nineteenth century were superior to
the men who lived during the preced-
ing centuries l think not, and
have good reason for so thinking.
find, in studying the history of the
human race, that for centuries men
have known, in vague sort of way,
that those forces existed, but they
lacked the knowledge essential for
their proper development They were
ignorant and superstitious, and ignor-
ance and superstition are non-pro-
gressive. They tend to make men
content with their lot, no matter how
low they may be DIaced
Now, in my estimation, men have
always been possessed of the splendid
abilities which enabled them to make
the nineteenth century the marvel of
the ages, and l firmly believe that
the men of the ninth century were
just as richly endowed by nature as
were the men of the nineteenth cen
fury
Now, if this be so-and l think it is
the man of today is in no sense SUI
perior to the man who lived one
thousand years ago, except in so much
as his education has enabled him to
develop his inherent abilities. mi
fact, had the same opportunities for
the acquisition of knowledge been pre-
sented to men one thousand years.
ago, am entirely convinced that the
wonderful progress of the nineteenth
century would have been ushered in
ten centuries since
Where, then, you will ask, are we
to look for the source of the wonder
full progress of the mechanical sci
ences during the nineteenth century,
if the people of that century were
not superior in constructive ability to
the people of preceding centuries p
My answer to this question is, theI
public school.
During the opening years of the
nineteenth century, the great common
people of the so-called civilized ma
tons became imbued with the idea
that education was just as essential
to the welfare of their children as it |
was to the children of their wealthy
neighbors.
Soon this educational idea began
to take firm hold on the minds of the !
proletariat. with the result that free
school systems were established here
and there, public school houses were |
built and their doors were opened |
for the admission of the children of |
the common people.
And right here, the intellectual !
leaven that had lain dormant for
thousands of years, began to work,
with the result that education even |
became general among the toiling |
millions. Hitherto these ignorant |
working people had possessed but |
little more intelligence than the cat
tie in the fields.
But, when they began to realize
the Importance of an education, they
became very much in earnest From
of higher education is but step, |
hence we find that academies and col |
leges for the dissemination of ad- I
vanced thought soon sprang up in
many localities, and before a third of |
the nineteenth century had passed |
away the common people began to
demonstrate their ability to become |
an intellectual power in the world
The children of the wealthy no
longer possessed monopoly of the
educational resources. Previous to |
the opening of the public school, edu- |
cation was very costly, as it could |
only be procured at the great national |
universities or through private tu-
tors.
And in those days the working man |
was poorly paid, poorly housed and
poorly fed. There were no Injuries
in his home; the gaunt wolf of power
tv avor nroUIod ahout bic do1r. b;e |