436 APPLICABILITY OF OVK EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 



We trust the current year will witness the taking of this last step towards secur- 

 ing to all the youth of the land, the full benefit of their Divine and human birth- 

 right — an education such as will fit each of them for his duties as a christian 

 citizen." 



Again the Judges on the Bench have made this the subject of 

 special addresses. In the same month Mr. Justice Hagarty used 

 the following language : 



" The only class of people that property is practically interested in educating, is 

 not compelled to accept, and exercises its right of rejecting the boon. But it 

 seems a very plain proposition that, co-extensive with the legal obligation to teach 

 should be the legal obligation to be taught. If it be said that it would be an inter- 

 ference with the rational liberty to enforce attendance at school, the answer seems 

 very reasonable. It would be an interference, but to no greater extent than the 

 compulsory contributions by assessment for school rates. In a well regulated city, 

 all nuisances are removeable by law. Every citizen has to surrender a certain 

 portion of his freedom of action for the general good. So long as compulsory 

 assessment for school purposes prevails, it could not be unreasonable to compel 

 every head of a family to satisfy the school inspectors that his children were regu- 

 lar in attendance on some course of instruction, private or public, as he should 

 think proper — allowing all freedom of choice in selecting the peculiar mode or 

 place, but insisting on satisfactory evidence that education was not neglected." 



This we conceive is correct reasoning. " The community has the 

 right, and it is its duty to require that the liberal and munificent 

 outlay which it invests in the education of its citizens shall not be 

 virtually counteracted or rendered unavailing to the accomplishment 

 of the purposes for which it is designed, by the culpable and criminal 

 neglect of a large portion of its members to avail themselves of the 

 facilities thus placed at their disposal. It has a right and it is its 

 duty to insist that for every dollar contributed towards the education 

 of the people, at least an equal amount shall be deducted from the 

 annual assessment for the maintenance and punishment of criminals, 

 and the support of vagabonds and paupers ; and this result it can 

 secure only by gathering into the institutions of learning provided 

 for that purpose, all those of a suitable age for whose mental and 

 moral culture no other adequate provision has been made." Let us 

 then begin in time to save our country from the danger as well as the 

 disgrace which must result from allowing the children, especially of 

 our large towns to remain uneducated, and thus descend to the 

 depths of social and moral degradation. To wait until the evil is 

 done and then try to remedy it by reformatories and ragged schoola 



