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SCHOOL 



CHOOL. An Englishman, on a certain 

 occasion, was showing a friend the evidences of 

 modern enterprise in his town. In passing an 

 imposing structure the stranger remarked that 

 for a factory building it was the finest example 

 he had seen. He asked, "What do they manu- 

 facture there?" The answer came at once, 

 "Brains; that's a schoolhouse." 



A nation is strong only in the degree in which 

 it recognizes the influence of religion and edu- 

 cation; they are the fundamental bases of 

 the state. The masses who compose the state 

 are in accord on this principle. No man, even 

 if he is without religious leanings, cares to 

 establish a home far from any church; neither 

 does he consider property valuable if schools 

 are many miles distant. The one stands for 

 security; the other, for progress. Wherever 

 civilization advances, in the vanguard are 

 found the modest church and the struggling 

 school. When, by chance, these two institu- 

 tions are late in assembling their forces, there is 

 evidence in plenty of lawlessness and general 

 disorder. 



The builders of the American republic, to 

 cite possibly the most conspicuous example, 

 stated the case concretely in the plans they laid 

 for the opening of the great Northwest Terri- 

 tory. The only clause of present-day interest 

 in the Ordinance of 1787 was one which recog- 

 nized the mighty power that lies in education; 

 it is quoted wherever school bells ring and is 

 printed in countless books, that boys and girls 

 may never forget wherein lies the strength of a 

 free people : 



Religion, morality and knowledge being neces- 

 sary to good government and the happiness of 

 mankind, schools and the means of education 

 shall forever be encouraged. 



The first school for every person is at the 

 mother's knee; "every word spoken by the 

 mother within the hearsay of little children," 

 says Ballou, "tends towards the building of 

 their future careers." The father may strive to 

 do his full duty, but of this first school he is 

 little better than assistant superintendent. The 



woman endowed with mother love is truly an 

 infant-school specialist, and it is within the 

 mother's power, when eventually the state 

 claims a part in the schooling of her children 

 at the age of seven, to send them to public in- 

 structors with ideals firmly fixed and characters 

 deeply rooted. 



The state demands that those upon whom 

 its future depends shall go to school ; not only 

 are "schools and the means of education" en- 

 couraged, but they are made compulsory. 

 When the American Declaration of Independ- 



A COLONIAL SCHOOL 



ence was published to the world only twelve 

 out of every hundred people in the thirteen 

 new democracies it created were able to write. 

 Small wonder that when one delegate in the 

 Constitutional Convention later pleaded for 

 the people's participation in the government 

 Alexander Hamilton should have said, "The 

 people, Sir; the people is a great beast!" 

 Uncouth, uneducated, untaught in the fine art 

 of clear thinking, the masses were not fit to 

 be intrusted with power. The educated mi- 

 nority set about to remedy the defect which 

 would have made a successful government by 

 the people impossible. "Schools and the means 

 of education" have multiplied until an illiter- 

 acy of nearly ninety per cent has been reduced 

 in less than 150 years to an average of five 

 per cent for white people in the whole nation, 

 while in Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon less than 

 two per cent are unable to write. 



