Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1919-11-05
WHITTIER ARE WE GOING?
PERTINENT QUESTION BY OUR
STATE SUPERINTENDENT
Professor Cary Sounds a Warning
Regarding Relation of Education
To Bolsheyism
(By c. p. Cary. Madison, State Superintend
emit of Public Instraetionl

tby T. r. Cary, Madison. State Superintend-
ent of Public Instruction.
Why not lend your influence and
active cooperation in securing for
your community for the coming school
year live, vigorous, progressive Par
ent-Teachers' Association? Five
+ thousand such associations in the state
of Wisconsin during the coming year
would improve our educational situa-
ton to a degree that we little dream.
Schools are sadly in need of the ac-
tive cooperation of parents The
school and the home are so closely
related in their efforts and ideals that
/ the most natural thing in the world is
for parents and teachers to get to-
gether in organized groups for pur-
poses OF discussion and mutual under
standing.
The bringing up of children to per-
form worthily the duties of citizen
ship and to earn a comfortable liveli-
/ hood in the next four or five decades
7 is tremendous responsibility. Par
ents cannot get along without teach
/ ers and teachers cannot get along
without the counsel of parents. I'm
less Parent Teacher Associations can
bring together in cordial and helpful
relationship the parents and teachers,
I'VE may expect to see a constantly
|
from the public This would mean.
for one thing, the development of an
attitude of mind among teachers to-
ward their work very similar in kind
/ to the attitude of mind of the least
competent day laborer toward his lob.
/ tn other words, the tendency would
! be to consider it a form of drudgery
/ by which one earns his daily bread;
work that is to be stopped instantly
at the sound of the signal and not to
| be taken up again or thought about
until the signal sounds to begin. This
attitude is no Pigment of the imagin-
alton. 1t is already appearing here
and there in the teaching body, and
wherever it appears it is sullen, ma
| terialistic, time-serving. Tt is born of
appreciate the services of the teacher
and that it also begrudges her a COM
| Portable salary. =
! Teaching is an affair of the spirit
and only incidentally of the body and
hands. When the life goes out of
this spirit and the work degenerates
Into time-serving lob for the sake
of the scant living it affords, the ma
ton is on the verge of collapse The
home alone cannot save it; the home
and the church together cannot save
| it. The school is an essential element
in our modern civilization. We should
preserve it with the same jealous care
and determination that we would pre-
serve our national existance.
If the high spiritual values and
ideals that should appear in teaching
areto be preserved, parents and teach
ers the country over must come to-
gether in a spirit of mutual helpful
ness and with determination mutu-
ally to solve the grave problems in
volved in training the rising genera
ton to perform worthily the high ser
vice the coming age is sure to require
We Must Not Have This Foreign
Example
From numerous sources, the New
York Times, for example, we learn
Of the Bolshevik educational program
in Russia. If these accounts are at
all trustworthy, a deliberate program
has been developed for poisoning the
minds of Russian children. This plan
includes systematic attempt to en-
courage them in idleness, unlimited
indulgence in pleasure and contempt
for their parents. Brutal and mater
ialistic principles are to be inculcat-
ed in the receptive minds of boys and
girls. Religious and moral instruc-
ton is strictly forbidden.
"There is no schedule of lessons, the.
pupils in the four higher classes de-
eide themselves every day what they
shall be taught. All educational ques-
tons are decided by school councils,
whose meetings are, to say the least
extremely original. Side by side with
the teacher sit delegates of the Schol-
ars' Committees children from the age
of twelve and upwards, and the decis-
ions of the latter are obligatory for
the teachers" at is deliberate part
of the Bolshevist plan to corrupt and
.deprave the children in order to OBJ
tain a lasting hold over them and to
train them for future propagandists
of Lenine's materialistic and criminal
doctrine"
The reader may say this is untrue
or exaggerated. Let us hope that
such is the fact, though 1 fear there
is no warrant for such optimism. Do
/ hear the reader exclaim, "Such
things could not happen in Americal"
Let US not be too sure. A recent
writer says that there is instruction
going on in this country at this time
in a systematic way, having as its
purpose the destroying of all ideals of
modesty, reticence, reverence for par
ents, respect for women, or faith in
any ultimate spiritual good. "As a
substitute for these ideals, without
which the world would never have adj
vanced beyond barbarism, the reds
preach the. most unbridled license in
speech and behavior. They make any
kind of religion, or even intellectual
agnosticism, possession to be asham
ed Of Atheism of the most blatant
kind is preached. Grossest material
ism is substituted for the ideals and
dreams which are instructive III the
minds of all normal girls and boys.
Indecent books and pictures are used,
"and young people are wallowing IN.
what they call psycho-analysis, but
which is really little more than educa-
ton in sex license" "a teacher in
the English department of one of our
schools prepared photography of
contemporary literature, which he rec
commended to his young students. In
cluded in this photography were books
which the public library forbids even
adults to read except in a private
room under the eye of an attendant.
One may well exclaim, 'To what Is
this world coming!" There are three
great time-honored institutions that
are responsible for the proper rearing
of children-the family, the church
and the school. Pause for moment
to think whether in your opinion these
institutions have as effective a grip
IN yyorney r7enuiIa ss thew once had and