Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1913-09-17
HOW PREVENT ANARCHY
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

four languages while the boy from the
red SchOolhouse may never learn to use
his native language correctly and
acquires so small vocabulary that
he takes up profanity as method of
expression-not knowing what to
say-he swears! When the name of
the Almighty Creator of Heaven and
Earth. Giver of All Good. is degraded
into conversational stop-gap. or is
used to emphasize statements made in
horse-trade or stories concerning the
size of fish when that name is so
used you have the beginnings of
anarchy right at home.
When you talk of excluding the
foreigner you are wasting words.
Much of the best that is in America
today comes from the mingling of
elements that we who are just outside
the current for time call foreign.
His exclusion being impossible, his
presence being necessary, what re-
mains for us to do here in Vermont?
The first suggestion have to make
has reference to our system of popular
education. The fact is that in YER
mont there is one weakness which
affects the whole public school system !;
as long as it is present many efforts
at improvement are like attempts to
drive spiles into quicksand. l refer
to the fact that we have no education
al test of applicants for the privilege
of voting at our election; that a man
who can vote for a candidate for
governor whether he can read the
candidates name in plain print or not,
can vote, whether or not he can write
his own name! In this matter we are
nearly sixty years behind the times
and the weakness is vital. Just as
| long as you have considerable number
OF the electorate who are without even
the rudiments of a common school
education. you will have a number
almost equally as large who wilk oppose
we'll nigh every effort for the better
ment of the educational system of the
state. We gladly recognize among the
| illiterate voters some who cheerfully
do all in their power to give their chill
dren, or even the children of other
people. an opportunity better than has
been their own. These few illiterate
voters are not the mass. That mass is
dead weight and until it is removed
we must lag behind.
Common sense will indicate that the
exercise of the suffrage cannot be
taken from those already possessing it.
Ii, however, provision is made that
after a certain date-a few years in
the future. an educational test must
be applied to all who seek registration
as voters. step will have been taker
toward real reform and until it is
taken no satisfactory reform will ever
be possible!
So much for the subject of education
in the schools. The most importan
phase of education, with relation t.
the prevention of the spread O.
anarchy, has it's place in the home
There is something that the school
without the home, can never reall.
teach. The deepest need in American
life is a sense of obedience to law
obedience not because it is pleasant
but because it is right. That sens
of necessity can be taught nowher
else as in the home.
You cannot, in the home, sympathiz
constantly with the child in his revolt
against the proper authority Of tn
teacher, in schoolroom and schoolyard
you cannot relate constantly in hi
hearing, stories of your own infrae
tons Of school rules in youthful day