EDITOR'S TABLE. 



127 



No, the more the matter is looked 

 into, the less reason (we believe) there 

 will be found to congratulate ourselves 

 on the overthrow by the state of the 

 old system under which parents planned 

 and contrived and economized in order 

 to get their children taught the rudi- 

 ments of knowledge. Private educa- 

 tion, it is true, has not been entirely de- 

 stroyed, for well-to-do parents those 

 who so generously provide public schools 

 for the children of the poor often pre- 

 fer private schools for their own chil- 

 dren; but it has been destroyed pre- 

 cisely where it used to do most good, 

 namely, among the poor. It may be 

 "revolutionary," but we confess we 

 should like to see the " laissez-aller,' 1 ' 1 

 the "go-as-you-please," if it must be 

 called so, of private enterprise backed 

 as no doubt it would be by the full 

 force of the modern pulpit applied to 

 the business of education, without the 

 least help or interference from the po- 

 litical machine, and without any legally 

 enforced contributions from " wealthy 

 tax-payers." Education would then rest 

 on a natural basis, and would have a 

 force and a tone that now it almost 

 wholly lacks. Instead of tending to build 

 np social distinctions, the change would 

 have a directly opposite effect by culti- 

 vating among even the poorest a manly 

 self-respect. The intellectual and moral 

 effort which it would impose upon so- 

 ciety at large would be in itself an edu- 

 cative influence of the first importance, 

 and would probably go far to arrest a 

 growing vice of the age a tendency to 

 frivolity. It is not by taking away ob- 

 jects of thought and care from the poor 

 that we are to create a stable society; 

 it is by giving them worthy objects of 

 thought and care. Lastly, by leaving 

 education to be provided for by the di- 

 rect contributions of the beneficiaries, 

 we should probably raise the general 

 level of wages for the poorer classes, 

 seeing that this is governed more or less 

 in all countries by the general standard 

 of living. At present the general stand- 

 ard of living among the poor does not 



include provision for education ; but 

 does any one who understands any- 

 thing of economic laws imagine that 

 wages have not adapted themselves to 

 that condition? It appears, therefore, 

 that what the rich give with one hand 

 they take away with the other, and, 

 as a reward for their generosity, are al- 

 lowed to control in considerable meas- 

 ure the education of the poor. Who 

 gains by that arrangement ? 



"We are glad our correspondent has 

 given us the opportunity of making 

 these remarks. As he is evidently a 

 man of much intelligence, we commend 

 the whole matter anew to his consid- 

 eration; and, in connection therewith, 

 would urge him to read what Herbert 

 Spencer has written on the subject in 

 the fifteenth chapter of his " Study of 

 Sociology." 



THE NEXT MEETING OF THE AMERI- 

 CAN ASSOCIATION. 



New Yokk, we understand, is this 

 year to have the honor of entertaining 

 the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, the thirty-sixth 

 annual meeting having been appointed 

 to be held in this city, for the second 

 Wednesday in August. There are many 

 reasons why our people should give tlie 

 Association a hospitable and hearty wel- 

 come, and spare neither effort nor money 

 to make its visit pleasant and its meeting 

 a success. While this is the largest city 

 on the continent, it enjoys the unenvi- 

 able distinction of being one of the very 

 few that have never entertained the As- 

 sociation, although that organization is 

 now nearly fifty years old. This is in 

 strange contrast with the well-known 

 liberality and intelligence of our citi- 

 zens, who have been unstinted in their 

 hospitality to numerous other bodies, 

 with certainly no greater claims to at- 

 tention ; and the omission is made all the 

 more conspicuous by the fact that sev- 

 eral towns, not one tenth the size of 

 New York, have already had the Asso- 

 ciation two or three times. There is, 



