The Minnesota fiery cross. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1924-19??, 1924-02-22
The Public School
Problem in America

Out of his boyhood has come to US
the sublimely simple supplication OF
Abraham Lincoln:
"God help father, help mother,
help sister, help everybody.
Watch over Honey and make him
good dog; And keep us all
from gettin' lost in the wilder
ness. Amen"
While Lincoln was on his childish
knees, phrasing the prophetic prayer
that we be kept from getting lost in
the wilderness, there lived a man
made in Gods image who preached
and practiced the solution of that
problem. Horace Mann, the immortal
sponsor and patron saint Of education
in America, believed that
1.-THE national safety, prosperity
and happiness could be obtained only
through free public schools, open to
all, good enough for all and attended
BY all"
/ have come to speak to you in
support of that fundamental Ameri-
can doctrine, to proclaim its impor-
lance to every phase of our private
and public life, to urge it's complete
and immediate adoption as the most
essential Of all national policies.
In his infancy Lincoln had expe-
rience with q wilderness in which
boys and girls, even men and women,
could lose their way-an uncharted,
unpeopled expanse of woods and wa
ter in which lurked the deadliest
dangers. He lived to see those perils
disappear. Others, vastly more vi
tai, began to loom large and menac-
ing. His utterances contain many
warnings with respect to a new kind
of wilderness in which, not citizens,
but society, might go astray.
There is no longer a frontier Amer
lea, but we have a wilderness in which
predominates as much of stealth and
more of vindictiveness than any jun
gle ever knew. 1t does not endan-
ger individuals as much as il men,
aces society. Out Of it crouching
creatures no longer spring upon hu-
mans to satisfy the pangs of hunger;
instead we have creations that prey
upon humanity to appease appetites
and passions for power. The art and
dignity Of enactment is being super
seeded by the Inscriptions science of
legal evasion and subterfuge. A spir-
1t of lawlessness Is abroad in the
land, and fast ripening into an an
archy that is none the less real be-
cause CARRIED in the ermine of re-
spectability and unconnected with
red banners and black bombs. Our
ideals and traditions are being
weakened by disrespect and inatten-
ton. Our politicians seek not the
common welfare, but their own sue
cess. Our schools are in every way
inadequate; they have not the insti-
tutional standing to which they are
entitled; they do not prevent litter
acy, not always promote patriotism;
too often they teach a divided allie
glance. Many of our churches are
becoming pickering centers land
sources of ceaseless, strife-ehgeniler.
ing controversy, fighting. NOT the
forces Of evil, but each other; chcrsh
against church, creed against creed
Out of it all, and because Of it all
there has almost ceased to exist that
priceless boon to humankind known
as news; propaganda, the modern
curse of civilization that spawns
prejudice and nurtures injustice, has
taken its place. Our modern wilder
ness Is full of darkness. Truth, Gods
truth and mans truth, has become q
vagrant--ragged, distorted and dis
credited by selfishness as never be-
fore in human history.
In all things, public and private
truth must prevail. Individually, that
means intelligence, health and vir-
tue. Nationally, 1t means liberty and
justice, the safeguarding of our ira
ditions, the fulfillment Of our ideals
To civilization, II means security
and continued progress onward and