The Elk Mountain pilot., 1924-03-13
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be at all comparable with those that
have already been reached under the
free and natural system that has
grown up among us"
NIlliteracy Sharply Cut
While there still is illiteracy in the
nation, the educational status of the
people has improved and still is i'm
proving rapidly under the local school
system now prevailing.
Between 1890 and 1920 the litter
acy rate for the country as a whole
was reduced from 1873 per cent to 6
per cent. This in despite of the tact
that during that time there came in
from Europe about three and a half
million illiterate immigrants, and
the high rate of illiteracy among the
Negroes of TIE South.
In 1871 only 100000 was spent
on public schools in ali the country:
IN 1920 the sum spent amounted to
81, l03s000,0o0. This was an increase
of more than, sixteen times, while
during the same period population
increased only about four times.
Our iliteracy rating still is below
that of some European countries, not
ably France and Germany, where the
schools are operated as national in
stitutions control being centralized
in those country's capitals
But it is now realized that, while
their schools are more efficient me-
chanicaIly than they would be under
local control, centralized direction of
education has worked immense and
insidious harm in both France and
Germany. The power over those coun-
tries minds which the centralized
systems gave to few in high author
ity very probably accounts for much
of the national psychology" which
brought on the war and which still
complicates the peace.
One eminent critic of the proposed
step toward a national educ ational
system has gone so far in discussing
IL dS " Sdy. LII lue OHlbcQ OldItS
we are, in fiat defiance of all our pro-
fessed principles and ideals, building
system of bureaucracies that will
put to shame the best efforts of the
government of the czar of all the
Russias in the heyday of its glory"
And many say that so-called "na-
tional aid" to education would be the
longest step ever made in that bane-
full direction.
The big point at issue is that of
control.
Does 1t Mean Prussianizing!
Will the Federal government be
willing to provide large sums of
money and yet leave all control of
the common schools to the state and
local communities as is now the case?
Or will the adoption of the measure
be beginning of Federalization-or
Prussianization, as some who oppose
it call the venture-of what, next to
the home, Is the most important ad-
junct of the nations life, the school?
1t is argued that other 'fifty-ffty"
ventures of like kind, such as the
county agent system and Federal aid
to good roads, have not resulted in
Federal bureaucratic usurpation of
state and local authority. But rather
definite strings are tied to those
other appropriations, and in case of
some of their objects there is steady
tendency toward increase of direction
from Washington. Only lately it has
been seriously proposed in Congress,
for example, that certain matters
having to do with the licensing of au-
tomobiles be brought within Federal
Jurisdiction by establishing them as
conditions to the receipt of funds for
road building.
But agricultural extension and
roads are quite different in many re-
spects from schools. The schools are
the inst; ;tdtions whence come the in
tellectual independence of the coun-
try Schools foreshadow the nation.
1t is not the governments business
to tell the people what to think, nor
to marshal the peoples thoughts this
way or that.
1t is the governments business to
be guided by what the people are
thinking.