SCHOOLS AND COMMUNISM. 



In 1868 a prominent plea against Free Schools was the argu- 

 ment that "the system is communistic in its principle and ten- 

 dency. Establish free schools and you encourage a demand for 

 free food, free clothes, free shoes, and free homes." Professor 

 Faucett, liberal, fair and progressive as he is, urged the same 

 objection in Parliament, saying, during the discussion of the 

 new "Elementary Education Act," which was passed in 1870, 

 "If the demand for free schools w^ere not resisted, encourage- 

 ment would be given to Socialism in its most baneful form." 



Time tests all theories, better than arguments. In Connecti- 

 cut a decade of free schools has witnessed no new tendencies to 

 Communism. The general intelligence of New England was 

 one obvious cause of its exemption from the communistic rail- 

 way conflicts in the summer of 1877. The sober second 

 thought prevailed here, while madness ruled the hour else- 

 where. The last election in Connecticut showed plainly the 

 popular dread of the socialistic tendencies and dogmas, which 

 were repudiated by both the leading political parties. In Mas- 

 sachusetts, where free schools have been 'maintained for more 

 than two hundred years, there is as little Socialism as in any 

 land in the world. Indeed, throughout New England, there is 

 no tendency to Communism among the descendants of the gen- 

 uine New England stock. The minimum that exists is limited 

 to a small portion of the foreign element. Though curiosity 

 attracted crowds to hear Dennis Kearney last autumn, it is due 

 to free schools and the consequent intelligence of the people, 

 that his communistic tirades disgusted all classes and 

 prompted the candidate who first sought his alliance to dis- 

 own his dogmas and disfellowship him. 



I find among all classes, employers and employes, in the fac- 

 tories and on the farms, a growing distrust, not to say detesta- 

 tion, of Communism. The mad outcry of the Internationals, 

 "Equality of conditions," "Capital is the enemy of labor," 

 finds no response from the intelligent laborers of Connecticut. 

 Thanks to our schools, they know that the condition of the 

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