Part 1 (1/2)

Public School Education

by Michael Muller

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

American fellow-citizens--America is my hoion, my country is the dearest object of my life! I love my country as dearly as any one else can It is this love that makes my heart bleed when I call to mind the actual state of society in our country, and the principles that prevail everywhere It is indeed but too true that we live in a arded, and iniquity is held in veneration We see nothing but confusion in religion, in govern up and swarion, but rejecting even the law of nature Fraud, theft, and robbery are practised almost as a common trade The press justifies rebellion, secret societies, and plots for the overthrow of established govern divorce, has broken the fanorance of true religious principles, and thereby becoardless of their parents The number of apostates froeneration Current literature is penetrated with the spirit of licentiousness, froant and flippant daily newspaper, and the weekly and monthly publications are mostly heathen or maudlin They express and inculcate, on the one hand, stoical, cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or on the other, empty and wretched sentiraver to caricature the institutions and offices of the Christian religion, and others to exhibit the grossest for scenes of cri The illustrated press has become to us what the amphitheatre was to the Roed, and Christians given to the lions to please a degenerate populace The number of the most unnatural crimes is beyond computation A wide-spread and deep-seated dishonesty and corruption has, like soreat body of our public men in national, state, and municipal positions, so much so that rascality seems to be the rule, and honesty the exception Real statesst us; neither the er

The shareat public plunderers of our day brazen out their infamy, is only equalled by the apathy hich the public per place and power upon the offenders ”The way of the transgressor” has ceased to be ”hard”--unless he be a transgressor of very low degree--and rascality rides raress to the lowest department of public plunder

The poet has well said that Vice, once grown fa our hate, next succeeded in gaining our pity, and finally was taken into our embrace

The familiarity of the public mind with daily and alh trusts has created this indulgent disposition, until at last the wholesouard of honesty, has been diluted into a maudlin syrowth of this evil is not --a foul fungus, suddenly forced into fetid life, out of the corruptions engendered by the war It is ”a new departure” in a wrong direction--down that smooth, broad path to the devil

We all remember the sensation which, before the as ever caused by the discovery of a public defaulter, and the indignation which drove him ever forth from place and country, on his detection Punishment sure and sas certain to seize upon hier after the facts were known

A breach of trust was not then considered a joke, nor theft elevated into the dignity of a fine art, whose arded with envy and admiration

Think of the clamor which was raised over the comparatively petty peculations of Sout, Schuyler, Fowler, and other small sinners like them, who even found the country too hot to hold them, and died in exile, as an expiation to the public sentied

Yet their frauds were as molehills to the mountains which the busy hands of our public peculators have heaped up, and are daily piling higher

Within the last ten years, where they stole cents, their successors stole by thousands and tens of thousands; and, instead of flying frootten wealth in the face of the community, heedless either of the arm of the law, or the more potent hiss of public scorn

And this financial dishonesty of the times is as true of coton as at New York and other cities ”Think you that those eighteen men on whom the tower of Siloam fell, were sinners above all others in Jerusalem? I tell you nay!” Think you that those six or seven on whom the axe of the public press fell, are sinners above all in New York and elsewhere? If all uilty of fraud in New York and elsewhere were to have a tower fall on theh for fifty years

One of the saddest syeneracy in a people is evinced by a desperate levity--a scoffing spirit such as that which inspired the French people when they denied even God, and substituted a prostitute to be their ”Goddess of Reason” Much of that spirit is unhappilyitself in our country

That most fearful picture of a corrupt community drawn by Curran in his description of the public pests of his day--”re at the bottom like drowned bodies while soundness re only from the buoyancy of corruption”--seems, unhappily, destined to find its parallel here, unless public virtue and public indignation should awake to conde the air around us

The judgment which overtook the men of Siloam was visited on them for sins not unlike those which seement fro matter Nay, in view of the many recent terrible visitations which have fallen upon different parts of our country,theainst national sins, perpetrated by a people who should, by their lives, testify their sense of the blessings showered upon theal profusion than on any other nation in the annals of reat body of our people are corrupt, or that they at heart approve of corruption, no one will be h to maintain But they are responsible before Heaven and to posterity for the criminal apathy they manifest in their silent sanction of the corruption and cri the American name a synony rascality

In the life of a nation, as in that of an individual, there are periods which are critical; and a restoration to health, or the certainty of speedy death, depends on the way this malady is met The crisis which now menaces the life and health of the United States cannot be far distant; for private virtue cannot long survive the death of public honor and honesty, nor private acy If the representative h trusts are reposed, be corrupt and sha down into the same mire the morals of the people they plunder and misrepresent Indeed ant no prophet, nor one raised from the dead, to tell us the awfully fatal results What can be done to stem the fearful torrent of evils that flood the land? We all know that when, in 1765, the famous Stamp Act was passed in the British Parlia Boston the bells werea funeral peal In New York the ”Act” was carried through the streets with a death's head bearing this inscription: ”The Folly of England and the Ruin of Areat was the opposition to the ”Act,” that it was repealed during the spring of 1766 This sho quickly the evils of society can be put down if people set to work in earnest

Noe cannot expect the people to set to work in earnest about stereat evils of the land, unless they are well enlightened as to the source fro system of education introduced into this country about fifty years ago At that time very few, perhaps, could foresee what effects it was calculated to produce After a long trial, we can now pronounce on it with certainty by its results The tree, no longer a sapling, can be judged by its fruits These fruits have been so bad that it is high time to call the attention of the public to the tree

Now in calling attention to this tree, I wish it to be once for all distinctly understood, that whatever of a seely or even really harsh nature I may say in this discussion on the Public Schools, is intended and directed _solely against the systee or officiate in them, as teachers or otherwise, I have, I trust, all the courtesy, charity, and respect due from one citizen to another If I offend the prejudices, convictions, or susceptibilities of any on this strangely ret it than myself; I can truly say it is not intended All I ask of reat question of education, to look at it without prejudice, without bigotry; for if prejudice and bigotry stand in our way, they will stand in the way of the glory and stability of this country, whose future God only knows It is the duty of all citizens to labor with a good heart, a clearup, and strengthening, and reat American people

CHAPTER II

EDUCATION--ITS OBJECT AND NECESSITY

The question of Education is, of all others, the ood deal of attention in public s, in newspapers, and in the pulpit In fact it has become a question of the day On this question, however, there is unfortunately such an anorance, prejudice, and confusion of ideas, that it is almost impossible to make the public understand it The reason of this is, because so ue views expressed on this subject in newspapers Many a paper is undoubtedly political, and so far partisan; and as such its editor will defend and advance what he believes to be the principles of his party But the question of education rises above party politics; yet when you read many a paper you will find that the editor appeals to the prejudice and passions of party in a way quite unworthy of an independent journalist, and of the grave subject under consideration He advances principles which, at first sight, seem to be quite true; for instance: ”Public School Education is necessary for our republican forovernment, for the very life of the Republic” ”It is an adovernence of the people” ”The framers of our Constitution firovernenerally diffused a the people The State must, therefore, take all e popular education, and furnish this intelligence of the people through her public schools”