Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1912-01-23
COMPULSORY EDUCATION!
Delegate Cook and Mrs. Corkran on
the Scene Some Entirely New
Revelations-WiIl Democrats
Aid Republicans to Fill
State Control?
Communicated.

To the Editor The Baltimore Sun
of January IS announced that Dele
gate Elmer J. Cook, Of Baltimore
county, had introduced the compulsory
education bill which has kept the club
women wake o. nights for the last
nine months.
On the same day The Sun gave
long interview, its chit-ehat female
correspondents had the day before
with Mrs. Benjamin w. Corkran in
lunch room. She carried satchel
stuffed with literature for the occa-
sion. She repeated the old, old story.
To read her one would never suppose
that the whole public school system
was lettering to its fall and that edu-
cation of the public school variety was
being pronounced "a curse by some
| of the greatest minds of this and
| other countries.
Mrs Corkran sprung continual little
| surprises on her chit-chatters. She
said: The time is past when a boy
or girl is considered to have suffi-
cient schooling at IL years to leave
school" Ye, and people are saying
that 6 or s is not the time to begin
schooling, but that II is nearer to
it. What would Mrs. Corkran do
with man who said ''let the boys run
the streets-as child labor laws pre-
vent working-until that age? 1t so
happens that Arthur Brisban's edi-
torial, copied in the Baltimore Star
of January Is gave this: at would
be better for nine-tenths of the chill.
dren of the world if they never learn
ed to read at all until they were 10
or IL years old, if their childhood
were spent dealing with realities,
manufacturing, working, fixing, de-
veloping themselves as intelligent
little human beavers.
Again Mrs. Corkran says: "The
time is past when education has to
be defended. Education of the public
school variety, which Mrs. Corkran
wants forced on all the white and
black children of Maryland is now at
tackled by its own friends all over the
country. Nothing that | have ever
declared against in the past forty
years exceeds what thinkers and even
some educators are now declaring
against it. The very latest samples
of these, utterances appeared in
Hearsts Boston Sunday American of /
January z. Two whole pages were
given up to an editorial and some
fifteen writer's. The main heading
was why Our Schools are All
Wrong" The other heading, stretch
ed all the way across the two pages,
read: THE New World Wide
Movement to Modernize and Reform
the Stupid, Unscientiic and Hap
hazard Methods of Education Which
Now Prevail"
Mr.. Hearst had evidently called
upon the noted writer's to give their
ideas of reform. Every one of them
presented details at variance with the |
present school system. Like the
scores of editorials that Mr.. Brisbane
has recently been getting off, nothing
but the abolition of the public school |
system would allow experimentation
upon the ideas. One of the most
prominent writers saw this point and
began his article with these words +: |
81 am not in favor of reforming the
present school system; | think il |
ought to be abolished"
The man who gave utterance to the
above was DR.. Woods Hutchinson, a |
writer of national reputation. He even
went 50 far as to head his article |
''The Streets Better Than the
Schools" What does Mrs. Corkran
and Delegate Elmer J. Cook think of |
all that? Then, too, at about the
same time a reform administration
that had been at work on the Boston
schools saw one of its members adj /
hitting that reform was a failure.
If our State delegates and senators
will read the half of what is going
on, not only in antagonism to COM
pulsory education, but to the whole
public school system, they will find
that Mrs. Corkran, her club women
and her Republican allies are revolv-
ing in little world of their own,
out of which it would be their pol
cy, as statesmen and patriots, to
keep. If the Democrats of Mary
land want to hold their own and re-
gain what they have lost, they must
for the next four years watch sedu-
ously against granting their oppo-
nents any advantages. Compulsory
education and woman suffrage would
rope in negro men and women and
help greatly toward still further fu-
ture Republican victories.
FRANCIS BUCK LIVESEY.
West friendship Md