The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1911-10-03

A freak posing as a patriot has sug-
gested that the school children of the
country contribute one penny each to
a fund for raising h Maine. The
government is already attending to
that business and paying the expenses
as we'll. but it is not impossible that in
some schools the plan will be put into
execution. In truth. a great many
teachers seem to think the way to in
still patriotism into the pupil is to tax
him for some purpose. 1t is probably
the most senseless fad found in the
schools.
Aside from the fact that such meth
DDS do not teach patriotism. they serve
the worstpur pose of contracting the
poverty and offence of the pupils in
a manne that makes acute the hui
initiation of those children whom par
ents can i'll offord to spare even the
pennies. The children whom parents
can afford it. will furnish the money.
But the child of unfortunate parents
will be forced to bear the humiliation.
Of not participating in the collection.
while probably far ahead Of the
wealthy rivals in scholarship and de-
partment-the real mark of merit in
the schools.
This parading of opulence before
the pupils of the public schools sows.
unconsciously possibly. the seeds of
discomfort which in later years germ
mate into the class hatred that is so
pronounced in this. age. The child
who is Inundated becauseof inability
to contribute to the school collections
has his sense of justice scared. his
pride of self abased and his belief In
the merit of worth destroyed. He goes
out from school with those things
ranking in his soul and at the first
opportunity. he puts them into effect
by endorsing everything that promises
the overthrow of their source.
A prominent professor in the uni
religion is to some extent hereditory.
The same is true in a larger sense Of
the economic side of our nature. The
lmpressionsof wrong and injustice that
are made on the child mind become a
part of his adult nature. and is passed,
intensified by time, from one genera.
ton to another.
In the few months that he attended
'chool Lincoln could not have con-
tributed a penny to such a fund as
that proposed for the raising of the
Maine. But how his sensitive soul
would have been burned. had he been
forced to stand by and hear the teach
er congratulate the children who
could. Would he have had the same
deep sense of equal justice for all that
marked his whole life had such a
thing occurred? There can be but one
answer. There is more patriotism in
one year of the life of that man whose
birthright was poverty. than in all the
cheap methods of penny contributions
chat can be made in forty centuries.
The incident which supplies the
ext for this article is not an isolated
one. Almost every year the children
n the public schools of the country
are called upon to contribute to some
scheme that has caught the fancy of
The teachers. 1t is time such things
we're stopped. Let the schools stand
:or those kingly merits of ability, good
conduct n high integrity. Let the
n OF democration. if any. be that of
The pupils own making. Let it be un-
derstood that in the democracy of the
public schools there is neither mass
nor class except as they are conse-
auences of the pupils own efforts or
his lack of effort.
When this is done, there will he less
inherent discomfort in the public mind
and more recognition Of the merit of
manhood,