Mansfield mirror. (Mansfield, Wright County, Mo.) 1908-1957, 1916-08-24
PREPAREDNESS
Is the Question of the Hour
and Now Is an Oppor-
tune Time to Think

AS the first Monday in Sep.
tember draws near, great many
boys and girls eagerly begin to
get ready for school. They have
spent nearly four months out of
school and are anxious to get
back. There is happy express
sion on their faces as they accost
one another on the street and
ask if they are going to start to
school. These boys and girls
are spending the early part of
their lives preparing themselves
for the future. They are laying
the foundations upon which they
will build lives worth the living.
No child has really lived if he has
not had the opportunity Of asso.
ciating himself with others of his
own age in the schoolroom. If
he has not participated in their
pleasures and their sorrows and
thus brought himself to sympa-
thize with them, then he has not
had what was coming to him.
Some children have never had
the opportunity to go to school
and have thus missed the best
portion of their lives. For these
children we express our SINGER.
est sorrow. Perhaps their par
ents were not to blame. l be.
lieve that most parents want to
do what they think is best for
their children, and most of them
conceive it to be best to send
them to school. However, there
are many parents who have SO
slight a conception of the value
of an education that they will al,
low their children to remain out
of school on the slightest pre-
text. 1t was for these parents
that the compulsory school law
was passed. .
Our public schools, with ait
their imperfections, ought to be
more fully attended than they
are, for within their walls and
under the care of conscientious
teachers is undoubtedly better
place than the streets, where
many children are found. These
boys and girls who are not found
in school or who are found there
just so long as the law compels
them are the boys and girls for
whom ,eleemosynary and penal
Institutions are established. 1t
is for the maintenance of these
boys and girls who grow up in
ignorance and immortality. that
the educated and the moral man
must expend his labor and his
money. Such children cannot
be blessing to community:
they are handicap. No com.
munity which expects to build
up its citizenship can afford to
permit one of its young people to
grow up without some sort of an
education. Education is of value
,n]y in proportion to the number
of people in a community who
possess it. If only a third of
The people are educated. then the
community is only one third ed
lcated, We should see to it that
every boy and girl in our town
gets at least a common school
education. The welfare of soci-
aty demands it.
The young man who does
but loaf on the street.
smoke cigarettes and tear down
what others build up has no
right to the protection which the
law affords him. He has no
right to use the side. walks, the
parks and other conveniences
that energetic people have brou.
yht into being when he does
to promote the welfare
If the community. How can we
insure our children, whom we
are trying to educate, that they
will not have to build for the un.
educated to tear down? There
IS only one way that this can be
done, and that is by forcing all
boys aud girls to get as good an
education as circumstances will
permit. There are some boys
md girls who believe that an edu.
cation is not necessary; that they
ought to get a job and earn a liv.
ug. Such reasons as these
avn nrN1ncaI NAV ool ,xo,>>.,.