The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-01-09
SAYS UNCLE CIV

Along about this time every second
year various bodies of misguided men
known as legislatures get together to
pay political debts, grab or dodge bride
money and enact a lot of laws designed
to keep people from doing certain
things said to be more or less evil. At
ter a while these legislatures will adj
journ and their members will go home
to hear the praises of half their con-
stituents and the courses of the other
half. After season their particular
corners of the world will jog along
again, pretty much as if nothing had
happened. Nobody will be greatly in
terested in the enforcement of the laws,
except certain officers, the police de-
partment and those private citizens
whose self assumed patriotic duty it is
to make it as unpleasant as possible
for the aforesaid officials to the end
that they may not forget their newly
imposed obligations.
Some of the new laws will be partially
enforced and some of them will not be
enforced at all. We have a bad habit
of invoking the whip of public senti-
ment for the back of the legislature and
then forgetting all about the evils that
temporarily aroused our ire. We in
dulge in spasms of virtue and then
our civic consciences suffer an attack
of nervous prostration, leaving the
beneficiaries of evil to work their will
undisturbed.
The trouble is that we have forgotten
the old adage about an ounce of pre-
vention and a pound of cure. No evil
can be cured by checking it. Prohibi-
tive laws are VIGOROUSLY inefficient as
eradicators, though they may be strong
deterrents. One of these days We'll
make the child control the man. Well
realize that we can make little progress
by restricting adults and then we shall
pay more attention to the education of
youth. - =
mr.. ,a,., ed,,ca finn will ha oontroIIa5
by the state, even more strictly than
the present one and it will be the big |
gest achievement of the twentieth CEN |
fury. In the first place. it will be a
more practical system. In addition toll
the three RS scientific and classical |
training, every boy and girl, rich or |
poor, normal or defective, will receive |
manual training and trade instruction I
according to his or her capacity. 1t
will be the purpose of this system of
educate to eliminate the idle rich and |
the idle poor.
Another principle, one already being
recognized, is the harmonious develop
ment of the mind and body. The weak
ling bound for invalidism or the hos
pital for the insane, will be made into
a normal physically and mentally eff
ficient youth. The child mentally
backward because he can think only
when his hands are busy will escape
the artificial martyrdom of duncehood
and be made the capable, valuable
citizen that misunderstood nature
fitted him to be.
Compulsory education will be a real
ity and not name. The compulsion
will be Intelligent rather than barbaric p.
and will begin by giving the child a
proper home and insuring proper par
entail care.
Because children thus equipped for
life are masters of their hands and
brains and appetites, there will shortly
disappear considerable part of the
necessity for the host of prohibitive
laws now upon the statute books But
in its practical treatment of the prob
lens of youth the education of tomor-
row will make one more step quite as
radical as the others. There will be
parental departments for the purpose
of co-ordinating the mental and phys ,
ical education with moral training.
The child of tomorrow will know the
of civic conscience and some
thing of the value of citizenship. Last
but not least we'll not expect him to
get his information from a well mean
ing but ignorant and underpaid high
school graduate who knows as much
about children as she does about the
MOON The school teacher of tomorrow
will approach in salary and position ,
The dignified preceptor of classical times !
and will know a good deal more about :
the practical workings of the mind and
body of the human animal. Wen pay
the instructors of youth more than we
10 policemen and get better return for
1ur money.
our barbaric prohibitive laws to fall
nto decay for the want of exercise. {
there will be more peace s
md less bribery up at the state capital. {
QUAKER NEGOTIATIONS.