Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1915-02-05
Need of Compulsory School Law.

| Ihe question for consideration, "The
Great Need of Compulsory System
of Education in Virginia." has during
the past decade, been often before the
educational bodies wherever assem-
! bled, but within the last year a great
many thoughtful people outside the
professional realm have become con-
vinced of the absolute necessity for
such law. The time for hesitancy
and waiting has passed. According to
The Virginia School Journal of Edu-
cation, there are 229,265 children out
of school, many of whom are predes-
tined illiterates, mentally, deaf, dumb.
and blind, forever doomed to a dark
ness more uncomfortable than such n
physical condition would entail. Do
you know, there are in this state 49,
S25 people over ten years of age who
cannot read and write word? That
Sl,lO5 of them are native born and
by every law of right and might they
should be in daily attendance in some
good school within reasonable dis
tance from their homes And vet thcy
are not! Astonishing as these fig
ures are to the average reader of this
enlightened age, one is apt to look
upon them with complacency, but the
feeling is turned into horror when the
figures are analysed and their true
significance realized. This great
body of illiterates is between 10 and
20 years of school age.
And how far is the cry from illit-
eracy to education? This condition
prevails to large extent in Tazewell
county, for in Il school that will be
forever nameless out of an enrolment
OF 56 there were 81 heads of families
who could not sign their childrens
report cards or write note of ex-
cuse, The condition would not pre-
vail II Virginia had, like 80 of her sis
ter States passed statewide COM
pulsory law. Is it any wonder that
our State ranks Al or 80 in intelli-
gence? Which ever it is, it is bad
enough.
1t seems to me a wasteful policy to
tax the citizens for the education of
all the people and then not insist on
each receiving his share. Then again.
it works hardship on those who are
regular attendants and decreases the
efficiency of the school, for every
teacher knows that the work is re-
tarded and the regularly attending
pupils held back by the irregulars
III attendance. Again, only about 60
percent. of the children of the State
enroll in school, and only 81 percent
OF the enrolment finish the elementary
course. Compulsory education will
largely correct this, and to n great eX-
tent remove the blot from the 'scutch-
con of Virginia's intelligence. En-
gland, Germany, France and Denmark
have had compulsory school law for
n quarter of Il century with an illit-
eracy percentage varying from 3 per
cent. to 1.5 per cent. How does that
compare with the United States with
percentage of 10 to rs per cent, the
latter States having no compulsory
law? We have heard the argument
against the State to force child to
attend school; that it infringes on the
personal liberty of the parent. All
laws curtail individual rights for the
good of society and this law does not
erect these rights more than any 9TH
er law. No one disputes the sovereign
right of the State to take the parent
when soldiers are needed and subject
them to the discipline of the army,
and shoot them if they desert. Why,
then, if the State may take the par
ent, deprive him of his liberty or even
of his life, for the public good should
we cavil about the right of the State
to take the child and subject him to
discipline for few hours a day in
order that he may be trained up to
be good and valuable citizen.
To the argument that enforced at
tendance will be an additional ex-
pense to the State for teachers, build
lngs and truant officers, since statis-
ties prove that increase in wages
keeps step with educational progress
OF the individual, any additional cost
will be met by n natural increase in
without imposing an ac-
tual burden upon any one.
To the argument, The Negro Prob
lem.--The negroes are attending school
without being urged. An investiga-
ton Of their educational progress will
reveal many things that the more en-
lightened race could well emulate.
Be it said to our shame, they need no
compulsory law-they go to school
tho hungry and insuiliciently clothed.
Moreover, in modern civic life, no
community or State is judged by the
standard of culture of few of it's
citizens, but by that of the entire COM
munity. No community can maintain
within itself an ignorant element with
n cultured one and preserve the cul-
tured from contamination. The Vir-
gina statute enacted six years ago
contains local option feature that
puts it within the power of every
school division to enforce attendance
for a part of the school year Q2)
weeks. 1t is undoubtedly weak, but it
has done good in the divisions where
it has been tried. 1t is directly in
the line of progress and it can be made
of valuable service in increasing en-
rollment and reducing illiteracy. Let
us agitate the question and make it an
issue. Arouse an interest and create
e demand for the enactment of a law
that meets the needs of the situa-
tion. No man with proper sense
of citizenship can fail to understand
that he must do his part towards cor
recting a long standing Indifference
to the needs of his neighbors child.
No man with the smallest idea of
proportion can fail to see the impor-
tance of having every child in the
State attending a good school reg
ularlv This division hae uada Como