The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-12-12
WHAT'S THE TROUBLE?

What is behind the spirit Of lawless~
ness, of mob violence, breaking out
here, there, everywhere over the land?
We used to imagine we were laW-re-
specting people. When the Boston po-
licemen struck, a flood of vandalism
rose to the surface as if from subter-
anean reservoirs of vice, and over
flowed the streets. Here was a revela-
ton of an element in the community
that had been held in LEASH not be-
cause it had the slightest regard for
law and the rights of property, but
solely from fear Of punishment. From
personal observation and from the tes-
timony of others, we are convinced
that the majority of the wild mob
that roamed through the streets that
memorable night, smashing windows,
plundering shops, and assauIting hon
est citizens, were young men.
Somewhere, once, these young
thieves and anarchists went to school.
There was the place where society
had its one chance to train them for
citizenship. The church reaches, can
reach. only a fraction Of the vast ar
my Of youth that will constitute the
coming generations. The public
school is bound to have substantially
all of them for a period of years.
What has been the theory of edu-
cation under whose influence so many
of those youths have come? Too
largely this, that if you can teach
boy to read and write and do his arlth-
metic, and give him a few other bits
of information, you can safely send
him out to take his place in the COM
munity as a safe and fairly well-edu-
Gated citizen.
No more fundamental mistake was
ever made. Out of the heart are the
issues of life. The more you train the
head, leaving unreached the real
springs of action whence flow the
streams that determine character, the
more dangerous a citizen dou you
make out of your pupil. University
training, the utmost discipline in sci
entific studies, involves necessarily,
no moral quickening Of the soul. The
emotions, avs Herbert Spencer, are
the masters and the intellect the SER
want Unless back Of the latter there
are high, generous, governing prlncl-
pies which have home in the inner
life, your intellect may become but
the more fatal instrument for evil be-
cause of its training. The sharper your
Damascus blade, the better its tenn
per, the more dangerous it becomes in
the hand of the VICIOUS and cruel.
General Ben. Butler, once trying a
case where an expert from Harvard
University was upon the stand, hav-
ing spoken somewhat brusquely to the
expert, was rebuked by the opposing
attorney and asked if he did not know
that the gentleman was distinguished
Harvard professor. Eyes" was the
reply, 1--WE hanged one of them some
years ago" His reference was to the
celebrated Webster murder case.
Hiram Powers, the well known
American sculptor, said years ago,
"That the need in our country is the
education of the heart!" and here is
the answer to the question with which
we began. This is humane education
the cultivation in the heart Of
youth of the spirit of justice, fair
play, generosity, compassion, kindness
toward all life no matter in what form
it meets US, on four legs or two legs
or on wings that fly. Humane educa-
ton has no war to wage with Scien-
tific training, or with any of the things
taught in our public schools. It's war
fare is against that and only that
which makes for injustice, lawless-
ness, crime, race prejudice, whatever
separates and divides man from his
fellow, against war and violence, dis
regard of others rights, cruelty in any
of its multitudinous shapes.
Of course it includes the teaching
of the claims upon us of the animal
world for just and kindly treatment,
1t believes that no man who is indif-
ferent to the welfare of that vast
realm of animal life which touches US
at every turn can be trusted to deal
righteously and kindly with his fell
low men. It's students have learned
by long years of experience, and from
the testimony of many well-known
educator, that nothing so predisposes
the heart of youth to recognize the
obligations it is under toward human
kind as that education which has awak-
ened in him the consciousness of his
obligation to deal justly and humane
ly with the creatures below him. OF
seven thousand pupils in an Edin-
burgh school for a period of years
when humane education was part of
the curriculum, and of whom record
was kept, not one was found to have
incurred in later life criminal rec
ord. The distinguished French teach
err, De Sally, says: