174 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



all the children in this District. It occurs to 

 me that it is a necessity which we ought to in- 

 sist upon. If, as my friend from Ohio says, six 

 years is too young an age, strike out ' six ' and 

 insert ' eight ;' but do not let us say that they 

 shall not be required to attend school during a 

 certain portion of the time in the year, and 

 that manufacturers or business men or individ- 

 uals who may wish to employ them in any ca- 

 pacity of life shall not be prevented from em- 

 ploying them during this limited period. It is 

 not a hardship on these children. It is the 

 greatest boon you can confer upon them. 

 They at this early period of their existence are 

 not prepared to judge for themselves. I hope 

 this section will be retained in the bill." 



Mr. Thurman: "Mr. President, no man on 

 this floor is more devoted to the cause of edu- 

 cation than I am, I am quite sure. I have 

 proved that by my work. I bestowed the 

 largest portion of six years of my life in ad- 

 ministering the common-school system of the 

 State of Ohio ; and I do not yield to any man 

 in the desire to see the children of this country 

 educated ; but at the same time I do not be- 

 lieve that this section would be productive of 

 good. So far as my experience goes, parents 

 avail themselves of the opportunities of educa- 

 tion that are afforded. I do not know any 

 Elace in which education is more general than 

 i the State of Ohio. We never have found 

 any difficulty there in inducing parents to send 

 their children to school. The only trouble has 

 been to provide a sufficient number of schools 

 for them. Parents are so ambitious of seeing 

 their children educated and seeing their con- 

 dition bettered in the world, that I know of 

 no place in America where parents are not 

 willing to send their children to school if op- 

 portunities are afforded them to do so. 



" I do not think compulsory education is a de- 

 sirable thing here. That there may be places 

 in the world where it is, I will not gainsay. 

 But though compulsory education might be a 

 desirable thing, this section does not provide 

 for it. It first provides that it shall be the 

 duty of parents and guardians to send children 

 to school fourteen weeks in each year for 

 twelve years ; but there is no sanction what- 

 soever, except the provision that the punish- 

 ment shall fallen the child, that the child shall 

 not be employed unless it brings a certificate 

 not simply that it has attended school for four- 

 teen weeks in the year, but also that it has 

 made the ' reasonable attainments ' which are 

 required in this bill. If the child cannot do 

 that, cannot come fortified with a certificate 

 that it has attended school fourteen weeks in 

 the year, and not only that, but has ' made the 

 reasonable attainments aforesaid,' it cannot be 

 employed ; and what are these ' reasonable at- 

 tainments? ' Attainments in reading, writing, 

 spelling, geography, elementary arithmetic, and 

 the elements of English grammar. Unless it 

 comes fortified with that certificate, everybody 

 is prohibited from employing that child up 



even to the age of eighteen years. "Why, Mr. 

 President, it will not do at all. 



"The Senator who has this bill in charge 

 and my colleague see that this is an enormity 

 to visit the punishment upon the child instead 

 of on the delinquent parent or guardian." 



Mr. Morrill, of Maine : " My honorable friend 

 quotes me. I desire to say that that is too 

 strong. I do not concede that it falls upon 

 the child. The child owes service to the par- 

 ent. In all these cases the child is put to ser- 

 vice by the parent, oftentimes against his will, 

 and in most cases it is so. Therefore it falls 

 on the parent and not oh the child." 



Mr. Thurman : " Not at all." 



Mr. Morrill, of Maine : " The law steps in 

 before a negligent parent to insist upon it that 

 the child shall have an education, and takes 

 away the service from the parent to that end. 

 That is my understanding of it." 



Mr. Thurman : " An orphan child owes no 

 service to its guardian for the benefit of the 

 guardian. That is very certain. The wages 

 obtained by a child under guardianship belong 

 to the child ; they are simply to be adminis- 

 tered by the guardian ; and we know in prac- 

 tice that the wages which are obtained by these 

 children, up say to the age of eighteen years, 

 do not all go to the parents, even where the 

 children have parents. 



" Seeing that, the Senators have proposed 

 to strike out this latter clause which visits the 

 punishment upon the child. Very well, sup- 

 pose it is stricken out, then the section stands 

 making it the duty of the parent or guardian 

 to send the child to school, but without any 

 sanction whatever to that provision of the law, 

 without any thing to enforce it." 



Mr. Hamilton, of Texas, said : "I would call 

 the attention of the Senator from Ohio to the 

 sixth disqualification in regard to suffrage on the 

 next page. It deprives a man of the elective 

 franchise who fails to send his child to school. 

 That is punishment enough on the parent, I 

 should think. If you strike out the section 

 proposed by the Senator from Ohio it will 

 leave that punishment for the parent." 



Mr. Thurman : " What page is that ? " 



Mr. Hamilton, of Texas : "It is in voting 

 for some officer ; it requires a registration of 

 voters 



Sixthly. Must not during the past year have omit- 

 ted to do his duty as in this act contemplated in re- 

 gard to educating or sending any child to school. 



" Then he is not to be registered as a voter." 

 Mr. Thurman : " I am very glad the Senator 

 has called my attention to that. Here is a 

 limiting of suffrage in a prodigious way. There 

 is a small smack of knownothingism in this 

 that had escaped my attention entirely. The 

 voter ' must, if coming of age after the 4th day 

 of July, 18Y6 ' which is pretty close upon us 

 ' be able to read and write the English lan- 

 guage, unless disqualified from so doing by 

 physical incapacity.' That knocks out a good 

 many Germans in this District from voting, 



