Part 7 (2/2)
CHAPTER XI
REMEDY FOR THE DIABOLICAL SPIRIT AND THE CRIMES IN OUR COUNTRY
Men look around, and ask, Where is the remedy for the so wide-spread corruption of all classes of society? This is a most important question
It is not difficult for a Christian to answer it A skilful physician, ishes to cure his patient, endeavors first to remove the cause of the disease So, in like manner, if ish to stem the torrent of the evils that flood the land, we must stop the source fro land, confess that the greater part of the wide-spread immorality in our day and country is to be traced to the separation of religion from the instruction in our Public Schools
Governor Brown, addressing the Seventh National Teachers' Convention in St Louis, in August last, said: ”It is a very custoreat safeguard of republics against the decay of virtue and the reign of immorality Yet the facts can scarcely bear out the proposition The highest civilizations, both ancient and itious Nowadays, certainly, your prime rascals have been educated rascals”
And indeed if we go to Auburn, Sing Sing, and other prisons, and examine some of the criminals confined there, ill find that there is truth in the Governor's words
Do the ence that could be communicated in a coton and Albany lobbies, rather _too_ knowing? Had not those blood-suckers, the shoddy-ites and are cos” and the ”whiskey rings” kno to read and write? Were not Catiline of old, and Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold of ence? Were not the parties to the recent tragedy, two of whoh in point of merely intellectual cultivation?
Mephistopheles was a person of surprising accomplishments, and the ablest debates in literature are those which Milton puts in the rand synod of devils in Pandeence; but, whether Mrs Stowe's revolting accusation be true or not, he was certainly a profligate
No one, certainly, gifted with ordinary power of observation, will ascribe crinorance, nor will such a one fail to see that a large class of the erous offenders of both sexes are educated, nay, over-educated, according to the Public School standard
The Boston Daily _Herald_, of October 20th, published the following as an editorial article:
”Year after year the Chief of Police publishes his statistics of prostitution in this city, but ho of the citizens bestow ht upon the e enough to s of sorrow and shame at the picture, we are assured that they represent but a little, as it were, of the actual licentiousness that prevails aentleman[F] whose scientific attainments have made his naated the subject, and the result has filled hiradation to which men and women have fallen, he has almost lost faith in the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century In the course of his inquiries he has visited both the well-known 'houses of pleasure'
and the 'private establishments' scattered all over the city He states that he has a list of both, with the street and number, the number of inmates, and many other facts that would perfectly astonish the people if made public He freely conversed with the inmates, and the life-histories that were revealed were sad indeed To his utter surprise, a large proportion of the 'soiled doves' _traced their fall to influences that h Boston is justly proud of its schools, it would seeh purification In toobooks and pictures circulate a both sexes The very secrecy hich it is done throws an almost irresistible charone, that we fear a large proportion of both boys and girls possess some of the articles, which they kindly (?) lend to each other The natural result follows, and frequently the ed in
And the evil is not confined alone to Boston Other cities suffer in the same way It is but a few years since the second city in the Commonwealth was stirred almost to its foundations by the discovery of an association of boys and girls ont to indulge their passions in one of the school-houses of the city; and not long ago another somewhat similar affair was discovered by the authorities, but hushed up for fear of depopulating the schools”
”That the devil is in the _Public Schools_, raging and ra the _teachers_, no one can well doubt who has sent a little child into thehts as a newly fallen snowflake, and had him come home, in a short time, contaminated almost beyond belief by the vileness and filth which he has seen, and heard, and learned _there_”--(Hathe Tyng Griswold, in _Old and New_, for March; or _Boston Pilot_, April 6, 1872)
A celebrated physician of this country says in his book, ”Satan in Society,” as follows:
”The evils and dangers of the present systeirls of our country, are too obvious to require_pari passu_ with the advance guards of iendered_, by the _materialistic syste at hoious instruction froeneration of infidels, and we are becoans of old, who had at least their positive sciences of philosophy, and their religion, such as it was, to oppose which was a criminal offence To those ould dispute this somewhat horrible assertion, the author would point to the published statistics of church attendance, from which it appears that of the entire population but a very s froain, those who attend church siious motives, and there remains a mini our charge The disintegration of the prevalent forious belief, the rapid multiplication of sects, the increase in the ranks of intellectual sceptics, the fashi+onable detractions fro with the influences already mentioned, may well cause alarm
”But we have not only the reious influence from our popular syste of the sexes in our Public Schools, which, however much we may theorize to the contrary, is, to say the least, subversive of that es have proved the true aegis of virtue We are bound to accept human nature as it is, and not as ould wish it to be, and both Christian and Pagan philosophy agree in detecting therein certain very dangerous eleerous and inevitable is the sexual instinct, which, implanted by the Creator for the wisest purposes, is, perhaps, the most potent of all evils when not properly restrained, retarded, and directed This mysterious instinct develops earlier in proportion as the eye and the iination are soonest furnished the e of puberty, it is strong, and well-nigh ungovernable, in those who have been allowed these unfortunate occasions The boy of the present generation has e of fifteen, than, under proper training, he should be entitled to at the tie; and the boy of eleven or twelve boastfully announces to his co virility Nourished by languishi+ng glances during the hours passed in the school-room, fanned by more intimate association on the journey to and froed festivities--picnics, excursions, parties and the like--stiossip of the newspaper, the flash novels, sentiallant of twelve years is the libertine of fourteen That this picture is not overdrawn, every experienced physician will bear witness
”And as for the Public School-girls, they return fro schools_'--these de but what they ought to have learned--physical and moral wrecks, e physicians are expected to _wind up_ in theAnd these creatures are intended for wives! But _wives_ only, for it is fast going out of fashi+on to intend thearded as'_foolish_'!
”We assert, then, that the present system of education, by its faults of omission and commission, is directly responsible, not, it is true, for the bare existence, but for the enormous prevalence of vices and crimes which we deplore; and we call upon the civil authorities to so euardians to so instruct and govern their charges, that the evils uished”
The attempt to prepare ion left out, is not only a failure, but a crinitude, that society has already begun to suffer its consequences in a dee_ of the ion and morals is the poisoned fountain fro the essential elements now omitted, the iovernments will be trampled on; if God's law is hated, the laws of men will be violated; hbor's property will only whet his appetite; his neighbor's life will be only a secondary consideration; he would, according to his creed, be a fool not to shed blood when his interest requires it; his fellow-men become imbued with his principles--anarchy succeeds subordination--vice takes the place of virtue--as sacred is profaned--as honorable becoht--treatises are waste paper--honor is an eations dwindle down into e--wisdohed at as a foolish dreabear of the weak-minded--crowns are trampled under foot--thrones are overturned--nations steeped in blood, and republics swept froer to educate the greater part of the co to the present system of the Public Schools, and rest assured we shall soon have a hell upon earth--society will be stabbed to the heart by the ruffian assassin called _Godless Public School education_--it will reel, stagger, and sink a bleeding victi, like the suicide, by the wound itself has inflicted I truly believe that if Satan was presented with a blank sheet of paper, and bade to write on it the ift to man, he would siht then turn his attention from this planet; ”Godless Public Schools” would do the rest