The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-12-04
MORRISON FAvORs STATE MAINTENANCE
(Continued From Page one.)

people, but that only an educated people can govern itself. Self-govern- ment of all nations Is manifestly the determination of the world It may bring veal and it may bring woe be- cause self-government by itself con- sidered is no panacea any more than is any other kind of government It has succeeded with us only because our general level of education has been relatively high.
 With the enormous growth of city population which we have seen, and with the relative depreciation of the town meeting, our greatest historical educational instrument in self-gov- ernment I think it Is very doubtful whether our general level of political intelligence is so high today as it was 75 or 100 years ago. At least it doesn't bear so adequate a relation to the problems with which we are con fronted.
 You business men are particularly interested in the perpetuation of our traditional New England industrial prosperity and supremacy. But you know that the prosperity of New Eng land never had any other consider able basis than in the superior educa tion of the masses of her people You know, too, that all the New England states, and particularly Connecticut, were among the first with universal education. The rest of the United States has now caught up with New England, and unless New England succeeds in maintaining her relative superiority she will slowly but cer- tainly have her prosperity filched away in competition with other sec tlons of the country and of the world which have reached her standard and which have the advantage of her in the larger stock of raw materials.
 One hundred years ago New Eng land, including Connecticut, was a re- zion homogeneous in population mostly Anglo-Saxon or Scotch-Irish with very little illiteracy, with a wig
 orous intellectual life. Her public
 education has certainly not deteriorat
 ed, but with the advent of hundreds oi
 thousands of citizens of other race:
 she has need of a vastly more efficien
 and comprehensive system of educa
 ton than has ever heretofore beer
 the case.
 You have learned hero in Bridge
 port that you have got to pay teacher
 not merely an increased wage, but {
 very much greater rate of compensa ton than has been the case in tn
 past. You know that your reason fo
 doing this is not consideration for tn teachers but consideration for the chil
 dren, and still more for the welfare o
 the city and of the state.
 Furthermore, I say to you tha with rare exceptions no city, an still less any country towns, can stan the financial burden which goo, . schools are going to impose. Tn typical American city is running il debt much faster than it is increas ' 1 ing in population. The cost of pub lie schools is commonly the iarges <; single item which you have, or whic l azy city has.
 . You see at once where at bottol q the difficulty lies We are trynig t l carry obligations which have becon l essentially state obligations as tow = and city obligations. They were ono g | primarily town and city obligation a but they have long since ceased e be such. There are few states in tt = Union, and Connecticut is assured = not one of them, which cannot reaC g fly and amply support all the educ n ton we need. But they cannot do
 by loading the burden exclusively u :. on their constituent municipalitie a The purely local support of schoo d and of highways has gone far = bankrupt many 8 country town. d a somewhat similar way, the carryin
 of state obligations is having the san n effect upon our cities. The city s practically limited for its revenues ,. the income from property taxes. II
 state can tax other objects such 8 incomes, inheritances, etc., as t d municipality cannot.
 IS Let me call your attention to tI ), rather striking indices of what h d happened.
 First, Connecticut, in common wi 9, the other New England states and 1 u deed with the whole industrial are
 has accumulated a huge mass d wholly illiterate citizens. The pc g centage of such in the state today o more than three times what it was
 1S40. Have we then assimilated tn 70 mess? Can we afford longer to nej y lect assimilation?
 '- The other Is the almost total di
 appearance of men teachers. In IS
 more than one-half of all the teache IS in the state were men. Today rath n less than per cent. are men. M l. have disappeared as you know p
 marily because they could not affo
 to follow teaching as a career. ha m no brief in favor of the native s D. periority of a man as teacher. l 1T has no such superiority.
 P. But a permanent teaching force
 the nature of things must be one
 which there is a large percentage h. men. Further, you are not likely l. be able to bring up a generation OO boys into law abiding, self-respecti
 men unless they come to far larg
 extent than is at present the case u N der the influence of strong men A their schools. The cantonments du n ing the past year or more have do @ wonders in the discipline of you H America. The public schools oug to have done 1t and in the future mt
 do il.