The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-11-28
By BRUCE CATION

Most authorities agree that a
Thanksgiving dinner isn't really a
100 per cent affair unless there arc
a number of children to gather
around the table. boiler for the
drumsticks and cat more pie than
the law provides for.
The average head of a family,
when he sees his children at the
Thanksgiving feast. counts as one of
his chief blessings the fact that they
will grow up in land of equal OPP
portunity, in a country that will edu-
cate them free Of charge and help
fit them for the task Of making a
living.
Yet in those much-talked of good
old days. when Thanksgiving was
supposed to mean great deal more
than it does now, that particular
reason for being thankful was absent
from most of the family circles in
this country.
i Just as the wage-earner and his
wife. or the independent working
woman, got an extremely rough deal
in those highly-praised days of SIM
plicity and contentment, so did the
children.
| A century ago there was no such
thing as an established public school
system. The father who wanted his
children to have even a decent gram
mar school education had to pay fol-
, it-and pay pretty well-out of his
own pocket. If he could not afford
to, the children were out of luck.
Il In Rhode Island, where hundreds
/ Of little children worked for IL hour.
a day in the textile mills, the yer,
! idea Of free public schools was de-
nounced as monstrous. Other sec
tons of New England, and most O.
the rest of the north, were NOR,
: liberal. They had the famous rat,
/ bilr' system; system that needs !;
. bit of explanation.
Il Under the rate bill, elementar,
: schools were established by town
= and cities, which made annual an
), preparations for their support. Blu
u these appropriations were neve
:, nearly enough to defray expenses; $
: the costs were met by pro-rating tn
= expenses among the parents, in Pre-
:. portion to the number of childrc
= each had in school.
;, Those were the days when A weel
= ly wage Of 50 was very, very GOO
!, pay for workingman-and whel
u as Horace Greeley showed, a famil
- of father, mother and three childre
could barely get the plain necessitis
of life for any less than that. Unds
such circumstances, the moderate e,
A pense entailed by the rate bill W,
+ enough to bar thousands of childre
from school entirely.
ye Pennsylvania, also, was backwa1
re in the field of education. It hs
h some free school. but the law pr
IT vided that q man who wished
enter his child in one of them mu
We declare himself pauper, prove it
Ee detail and have it attested by &
n; school master before the child cou
st be enrolled. Naturally, this Ike
id most children out Of school; in 10
E. there were in the state 100000 oh
in dren who had nc schooling wins
IN ever.
b.
rtI A number Of free schools we
t. supported by philanthropic citizel
It, Thomas jefferson subscribed $500
n year to the first free school in Was
d, ington; De Witt Clinton did the sal
il. in New York.
ph In the colonial days in New En-
en- land there was more support for II
ob schools than during the half centu
as that followed the Declaration Of
ed dependence. The early Puritans h,
h that each individual must interpl
nd the Bible Alright, on pain Of eterl
II, damnation; hence they felt that
e was only fair to give each indivij,
! chance by teaching him to re-