The Belding banner-news. (Belding, Mich.) 1918-1973, 1920-09-22
TELLS OF OUR
FAULTS IN CRIMINALS
IN THE MAKING :
PATHFINDERS LEADER WANTS
SCHOOLS TO TEACH THEIR
STUDENTS HOW TO THINK
(By John F. Wright, Sec. Published
Detroit News, Sept. p

Detroit News, Sept. y
Your editorial in Sundays News.
"Olso teach them to think, sarikes
what should be the key note in the
curriculum of our public schools. DR..
Cochran's interview in the Detroit
News on his return from war SER
vice in France. in which he said:
"The church has failed in its mission
to men, because it has tried TO make
men as it would like them to be
without first understanding them as
they are, might well have included
our schools, colleges and universities.
Professor Wenley, of Ann Arbor,
hit the nail on the head when he said:
Our educational system appears to
be designed to prepare the student
body for decomposition" and $50
90 of what is now taught in our
schools should be thrown out"
Governor Ferris presented another
view point when he said: "We have
spent all our time making ministers,
lawyers and blacksmiths out of men
and now find it necessary to face
about and make men out of black
smiths, lawyers and ministers.
A few years ago President Nicho-
las Murray Butler, of Columbia Uni
versity, in a commencement address
to the young women of Vassar col
lege, dicussed the following five evil
dences of an education: Correct
ness and precision in. the use OF the
mother tongue, refined and gentle
manners which are the expression Of
fixed habits of thought and action;
"the power Of reflection, the power
of growth" and Efficiency, or the
power to do.
| have never visited a prison, or
became interested in the inmates of
any prison, that / have not found
plenty of men who could measure up
to the standard set up by President
Butler, yet they were the most clever
thieves and crooks as we'll as pris-
oners in the institution.
"The little finger of chicane has
become thicker than the loins of vio-
lence", but because it is nourished on
what we call Efficiency in business"
we spit our spite out on the class
that use violence.
Our prisons are by no means filled
with illiterates, and the entire prison
population represents less than 1870
of the crimes committed. as the bal
lection or punishment.
The newspapers report that the
Judges of our Supreme Court have
decided that the income tax, when
applied to their salaries, is uncon-
of Iowa, while at the Capital making
laws to regulate vice and crime, are
charged by a Des Moines Judge, with
the delinquency of girls from 10 TO 20
years of age, so that Universal Laws
such as day and night, heat and cold,
gravity. ETC., ETC., are about the only
laws that. are respected today, making
legislation of no avail.
The boy that steals is simply taxi
ing what he wants in the very best
way he knows how to get it. His
academic education and training and
training has been to acquire material
wealth through the fattest pay en-
velope in the shortest possible time,
while his religious education and
training has been to provide a spirit
ual home in another world, the title
to which, need not necessarily be eff
fected by the methods employed in his
earthly accumulation.
AS his training and experience has
not established in his mind any well
defined difference between tie prof.
teer and the gun-man, and the price
of a gun is within the limits of his
cash capital stock. he starts in that
line of business.
To teach our boys and girls to read
write and cipher is not enough. We
must teach them TO think, through
which they will understand and ap-
preciate their individual relationship
and personal responsibilities, to them
selves, their families, neighbors, en-
ployer, country and God il we are to
have true men and women.